Little Slips
by Lassenby
Summary: When Groot bails on him, Rocket is forced to turn to Drax to help him finish some outstanding contracts. The infuriatingly literal man drives him out of his mind, then later, out of this clothes. Rocket/Drax romance. Mild porn, very fluff. (Spoilers for the movie)
1. Chapter 1

Rocket was drunk and rambling. Groot had left him, not only left, but left with business unfinished. He'd abandoned Rocket with obligations to the sort of people that you didn't want to disappoint. That was the gist of what Rocket ranted about, although he threw in a few colorful words for the woman who instigated Groot's sudden departure- words like harpy, siren, tree-humper and hippie- and made it all around clear that he held no fond regard for the Krylonian woman.

"He told you several weeks in advance that he was going to stay behind with Stormy," Drax reminded him, with no great interest. Rocket had recounted this tale of woe several times already in the short time that Drax had been working for him.

"I didn't think he was serious," Rocket said, staring sorrowfully into his glass. "I mean, what is he going to do without me? He can't... can't..." he hiccuped. But Groot _could_ do anything. It was Rocket who couldn't pull off an armed prison-break on his own, or transport a bounty to the shuttle, or reach the higher shelves, or calm down after his nightmares- the ones he had every night, for which he needed the embrace of some stupid tree who just happened to smell like a secret, safe wooded hideaway, where no scientists could mutilate him anymore.

"He can't reach things that fall under the fridge," Rocket finished weakly.

Drax was quiet for a moment. "But couldn't he just extend smaller, more flexible branches to retrieve the object?"

Rocket groaned and laid his face down on the table.

"Is that wrong? I do not know much about Groot's anatomy. But I think I have seen him-"

"Shut up, Drax."

Rocket had been stuck with Drax for three weeks now. Everyone else on the team had been busy with their own lives, except Gamora, who had (for some reason) taken offense to Rocket asking if he could 'pay her to do some stuff with him, which would possibly include spooning'. "Groot used to do it, and he didn't make a federal case out of it, neither!" Rocket had yelled, after she got all pissy with him, and then she'd hung up abruptly. So when he finally asked Drax, who was his absolute last choice, he left out the cuddling clause.

"Oh, d'ast. She thought I wanted to pay her for sex." Rocket finally realized, and laughed like a maniac. Drax looked at him with a perplexed frown.

"Who did you proposition?"

It took awhile for Rocket to calm down enough to talk. "Gamora. Oh man. I asked her if I could pay her to do some stuff with me... Some STUFF!" And then he was off again, clutching his sides and braying with laughter.

"I'm going to retire to bed. I do not understand your jokes," Drax said, as he stood up from his chair and started toward his quarters. He had to duck slightly in the small vessel.

"I'm not surprised! You have no sense of humor."

Drax cast a shriveling look back over his shoulder. "Or perhaps you aren't funny."

Rocket leaped out of his chair, and stood up on the table, which put him only close to eye level to Drax. "You don't know what you're talking about! I'm plenty funny. I'm the funniest flarking guy on this whole stinking team."

"I believe that Star-Lord is the 'funniest flarking guy' in the Guardians."

"You just have an answer for everything, don't you? How about this one. An interstellar bad-ass who just happens to resemble a raccoon, a Groot, a Rigellian Recorder Unit, and a war-brotherhood squadron of badoons enter a bar. Then Groot and me- er, the interstellar bad-ass- we blow the friggin' heads off all the badoons, and their badoon general, KZZ-WARK, and save that recorder droid's worthless life! Then how many leave the bar? Nope, I screwed up the joke. Still funny though, huh?" Rocket laughed like a buffoon. Drax's brow furrowed.

"Rocket?"

"Yeeee-eeees?" he grinned.

"I think you have had too much to drink this evening. You are... shitfaced."

"Maybe." Rocket held up a finger, to indicate that he was about to make a profound point. "But maybe... maybe you're not shitfaced enough. Stay up, come on, knock a few back. Loosen up." He was dangerously close to pleading, but he wasn't ready to go to bed, and he didn't want to be alone.

Drax looked like he would decline, but then hesitated. "I suppose I could stay up awhile longer. I was not tired anyways. I only wanted to get away from you."

"That's the spirit, buddy! Sit down, I'll pour you a shot."

An hour later they had finished with shots and had moved on to drinking straight from the bottle. They sat on the floor, backs to the console, passing a bottle of vodka between them. Empties littered the ground by their feet.

"You are sooo much more fun when you're drunk. You should be, uh, an alcoholic."

"Do I need a permit for that?" Drax asked. "Are there classes?" Rocket chuckled, even though he knew Drax hadn't been making a joke.

"Nah, forget-" Rocket belched. "Forget about it. Shit. I am drunk." The world swam around him, so he closed his eyes to try to escape the vertigo. He leaned against Drax's warm, solid side, and dozed for a minute as they sat in companionable silence.

Suddenly Drax laughed. Not just laughed- he thundered, he roared, he shook the goddamn ship. Rocket leaped up, startled out of his drowsing state.

"What the hell is so funny?" Rocket shouted. "You scared the crap out of me."

"I get the joke," Drax said between bouts of laughter. "The one about the badoons, and the Groot. KZZ-ZZ... ZZ... Blam! Bwahaha!"

"Now I think you're shitfaced, buddy. So, uh... let's get you to bed." As if Rocket could see even a foot in front of him. Somehow they managed to gather themselves into an upright position, stagger through the living quarters, and make it into Drax's small room, with only one unfortunate tail-treading incident. They had two bedrooms, which had been a selling point for this particular shuttle, although each one was barely larger than a closet. Fine for Rocket, not so good for Drax, who could barely lay out in the space. His head touched one wall and his feet touched the other.

"Okay. I'm gonna go." Rocket said when Drax had finally managed to cram his large body onto the too-small cot. "See ya."

For awhile he searched for the door, which had been there just a moment ago, he was positive about that. "Flarking door," he muttered. Drax heard him bumping around and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Just... just... here it is!" Rocket smacked around for the hydraulic release. Of course he had found a window and not the door at all, so he would never find the button.

"Just lie down," Drax demanded. "I want to sleep now."

Rocket grumbled some more about flarking doors running off, and the dast crumbly workmanship on everything these days, but did as he was told. He clambered up onto the cot, still clothed all the way down to his boots, and curled up against the Drax's chest.

"I did not mean here. I meant the floor."

"Yeah, yeah. Shut it, Drax,"Rocket said, but with no venom in his voice. He was too far gone to give a crap what he was babbling about, and apparently Drax was falling asleep too, because he offered no rebuttal. Rocket's last thought was his bed-mate didn't smell like a secret wooded hideaway, but he did smell nice. Dry, like a martini, with undertones of sour sweat. Rocket didn't know why he should like the smell of a guy's unwashed pits, that was obviously disgusting, but he did. He snuggled up under Drax's chin and passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

That night, Rocket didn't have a single nightmare. Not the one where he's strung up and dissected... not the one where he finds himself suspended in a fluid-filled tank, with tubes stuffed down his throat... not even the one where Groot tries to say good-bye, and Rocket is too hurt and angry to even look at him. Not one, not that night, for the first time in as long as he could remember. He had been passed out drunk, but the nightmares had _always_ found him, even through that haze. So it had to be Drax. It was something about sleeping beside a person- a grumbling, snoring, elbowing, warmth radiating person- that sat well with Rocket. Even when he'd slept curled up in Groot's arms, the nightmares had still wrung him into waking every night. But at least he'd had something safe to wake up to, then.

But on this particular night, Rocket slept through soundly. Of course he had freaked out in the morning, and rushed out of there before Drax could wake up. Neither of them mentioned it again. He wasn't sure if his friend even remembered. That had been two weeks ago, and the nightmares were back, and even worse. Now he was dreaming about that other shit too, the shit he couldn't even consider when he was conscious, and waking up with a rock-hard erection and his heart pounding.

"Dast," he moaned, gripping his forehead in his hands. "My head is killing me." It wasn't even that bad. 'My head hurts' was just his chorus, something that slipped out automatically in the mornings. He had been hungover so often that it was usually true.

"You've been imbibing too much alcohol," Drax informed him, as he sharpened his blades at the kitchen table, same as every day.

"Mind your own business," Rocket grumbled. "Hey. Do you want breakfast? I'm gonna cook breakfast."

Drax looked skeptical. "You have never cooked before."

Rocket shrugged. "I usually scavenge. Don't blame me, it's my genetic make-up. But I've cooked before. It's just been a long time."

"Women's work," Drax snorted, as he turned his attention back to his weapon, lovingly dragging the steel along it's bladed edge.

"So you _don't_ want pancakes, then?" Rocket asked, feeling miffed.

Drax looked up quickly. "I _do_ want pancakes." He said it with sincerity and such an expression of alarm that it made Rocket feel weird, kind of like laughing, kind of like something else. _It was cute,_ he realized. Yep, that was it. The guy looked like a big dopey dog who had just been threatened with no more treats for a month, and Rocket found it adorable.

"Whatever," he said, blushing under his fur. "I guess I'll make you some, even though you're an ass. I get it, you're not from here, you don't know the lingo. We're all from somewhere else! But a guy offers to cook for you, you don't act like a dick about it. Yeesh! Learn what's socially appropriate!"

As he ranted, he dug around the cupboards for the instant pancake mix. The box had accumulated a layer of dust over the top. Rocket blew it off and ripped open the cardboard tabs, then used his teeth to puncture the inner plastic bag. He glared at Drax, expecting judgment from him, but he seemed unfazed by Rocket's less-than-sanitary cooking methods. Then he reluctantly retrieved the folded step-stool from the small pantry, laboriously hauled it out and locked it into position, then scrambled up to reach the stove. He forgot the box on the ground and had to go back to get it. By the time he dumped the entire box into a white plastic mixing bowl, he was exhausted.

"Holy shit. We're going to have a lot of pancakes," Rocket said, as he read the instructions on the back of the box.

"I will eat a lot of pancakes," Drax replied, sounding pleased. "If I must."

"Alright, well, good." He wound up having to get out all the rest of the mixing bowls too, three in all, and divide the water and mix between them. After the strenuous process of mixing the contents of the first bowl, Rocket demanded that Drax bring his lazy ass over here and help with the work.

Drax tucked the bowl into his arm, clenched the large stirring spoon tightly, glared down at it with all the intensity of a stone idol, and proceeded to fling water and powder mix all over the kitchen. Clumps of half-combined batter rained down on Rocket and he shouted, "Stop, you idiot, cut it out! Not so fast!"

He jerked the bowl away from Drax, who seemed surprised that he hadn't been doing a stellar job. Rocket showed him how to fold the water into the powder, keeping the spoon to the side of the bowl. "Got it?"

"Yes." Drax took back the bowl, and started to mix too fast again. Then he seemed to get the rhythm down. Rocket started on the third and final batch. "Did Groot help you with cooking before he left?" the larger man asked.

Pain crackled in Rocket's heart. Thinking about Groot always had that effect. "Nah. He used to, but he caught on fire once, and he wussed out after that." Actually, Groot had tried to assist him the very next time he cooked, but Rocket had vehemently dissuaded him.

"I can see why you do not cook often," Drax added as Rocket clambered up onto the counter to reach a high shelf, where he kept the skillets. He dragged the largest one down, but lost control, and nearly bonked himself on the head. He dropped it and jumped aside, and Drax caught the handle before it hit the floor.

"It's not that bad. Just takes longer." As if Rocket had anything to compare it too. Cooking didn't just take longer, it took downright forever, but he still liked it. It was one thing he could do besides murdering, thieving, and building explosives. Those were fine skills, not to be underestimated, but you could rarely use them to thank a lady for a night of passion before running out on her, or repay a teammate for saving your ass when the shit hit the fan. _Or to butter someone up when you're going to ask them for a wildly inappropriate favor,_ Rocket thought.

"Is this mixed enough?" Drax asked, and tilted the bowl downward for Rocket to peer into. Some of it slopped out and landed on his muzzle. "I am sorry. That was... 'my bad'." He reached out and wiped it off Rocket's nose, then sucked the batter off his fingers.

"Gross! That's got my fur in it, you know."

"I do not care."

"I have fleas, too. Big ones. You probably just ate a giant, mutated flea." Rocket poured some of the batter into the hot skillet. On contact, it sizzled and popped, and smelled heavenly. Rocket poked it twice with the spoon, then dragged it across to make a smiling face. He had poured in way too much batter. When it set up, it would be nearly the size of Drax's head.

"You do not have fleas. Fleas spread readily from one being to another, and we live in close quarters, so I would already have contracted them if you did."

"Oh yeah? And where would they live, baldy?"

"I have hair," Drax said, mysteriously.

"_Where?_ Don't answer that, I don't want to know." Rocket slid the first pancake out of the skillet and onto a plate. As soon as the plate touched the counter, Drax picked up the huge pancake, folded it like a taco, and crammed the whole thing into his mouth. "Yikes!" Rocket cried. He poured more batter into the skillet, smaller blobs this time, so the resulting pancakes would be more reasonable in size.

"I informed you that I would eat a lot of pancakes. Should I wait until we've finished making all of them?"

"Yeah! I want to eat too, you know."

Drax snorted. "Haha. As though I would eat all of the pancakes. Now that is a funny joke."

Rocket shook his head, bemused. He could never predict what his teammate was going to do, or say, or find amusing, which at least made things interesting. They made pancakes in silence for awhile, Rocket scraping batter into the pan, Drax holding out plates for him to slide them onto. The process took half an hour, and they filled three platters and two large dinner plates in all.

"Way too many. I forgot that you don't use the whole box."

"Too many?" Drax asked, between bites. He shoved one after another into his mouth, without butter or syrup or anything, and Rocket blinked.

"Dunno. Maybe it's not." He smothered his own plate in syrup and a big dollop of butter. The syrup wasn't real maple, not even the fake Terran variety that Peter Quill had gotten all of them hooked on, but it was still better than the tough, plain pancakes. Drax had over-mixed his batch. But with all the extra crap, they tasted okay, and Rocket finished nearly his whole plate before he got up the nerve to say what he wanted to.

"So... hey! You remember that one night? That time we both drank too much?" Rocket exclaimed, as though he just recalled the night in question himself.

"Yes. You fell asleep in my bed." Drax said, ever the subtle linguist.

"Oh yeah, that's right! I did do that. Ha, what a crazy night. Yeah." Rocket dragged his fingers self-consciously through the fur of his right temple. "So I was thinking. This isn't gay or nothing, but I slept really good that night. And..." He trailed off, hoping that Drax would catch his drift, but the man just stared at him, waiting for him to finish. Rocket gnawed his nails nervously. "I was thinking we should do it again. Nope, I'm joking. If you think it's weird. If you don't, then I'm serious. Dast it! Say something, you oaf!"

Drax chewed thoughtfully for what seemed like an eternity. "That is agreeable. But do we have to drink too much alcohol first? It is enjoyable to do so in the moment, but I find it not to be worth the experience in the morning."

"No, it's fine!" Rocket sighed with relief. "You can be stone cold sober, for all I care. If it's all the same to you, I'll keep up the bender, for awhile. For the adjustment." Drax looked at him blankly. "Cos' I'll be bunking with another guy! You know what I mean."

"Not really." Drax frowned. "To be truthful, my friend, I often don't understand things you say. I assume it is because you speak nonsense."

"It doesn't bother you that you're going to be sleeping next to a guy? I mean, what if you pop a boner? What if _I _pop a boner?"_ What the flark am I saying?! Somebody stop me_, Rocket thought.

Draxx looked the way he often looked- Like he had no idea what Rocket was getting at. "In my culture, there is no stigma against two men sleeping together. Also, 'gay' is a construct that I am not familiar with. Any two people can be together, can they not?"

"Okay, this is NOT making me feel better about bunking with you."

Drax shook his head. "I have a preference for females, if that brings comfort to you. And I have not desired anyone since my wife. But if you change your mind about the arrangements, I will respect your wishes."

Rocket's mind flashed to the nightmares- specifically to the one in which a lab-coated person peers at him, only inches from his face, but distorted by a thick barrier of glass, and Rocket screams at the man, or screams in pain, because he is in _so much pain_, but the tubes and the sterile fluid all around him stifle the sound- and he practically yelled, "No! No. I want to keep the... arrangement."

"As you wish." Drax polished off the last pancake and belched.

Rocket rolled his eyes. He couldn't quite believe that he had agreed to sleep with his friend, who had just eaten three platters of pancakes, and who was exactly the sort of man he had _those_ nightmares about- not the ones about scientists, but about convicts, which were so much more disturbing in many ways- and even worse, that he had been the one to suggest it.

He almost lost his nerve. But that night, Rocket stumbled drunk into the cot where Drax was already snoring, and fell directly into the most peaceful and dreamless sleep he could have hoped for.


	3. Chapter 3

Two full weeks passed before Rocket had another nightmare. The contract with Drax, the one they'd formed to take care of all the business Groot left behind, had nearly run out- in one week, there could be a little reconnaissance/arson thing they had to take care of, but after that... well, Rocket didn't know. Probably Drax would go back to whatever he had been doing before. Rocket had been thinking about it as he fell asleep, and probably why he had the dream.

It's a familiar one. Groot, bending down to where Rocket stands, tentatively touching his shoulder and Rocket slapping him away, not meeting his eyes. _I am Groot_, he pleads, and Rocket says nothing, and eventually Rocket whips around to tell his friend exactly where he can shove it, but Groot is already gone. In his dream he goes running after him, searching for him. In reality, Rocket had just disappeared into space, ignored his friend's messages, and tried to replace him.

"Groot!" he called out as we woke from the well-worn nightmare, with just as much dread as every other time. His guilt and confusion never really faded, were only crammed further into his subconscious. He shook all over.

Beside him, Drax stirred. That contract would be over soon too, Rocket supposed, and he would be back to sleeping alone. Suddenly a weight pressed down on him and he jolted, alarmed, but it was just Drax's arm, unexpectedly wrapping around him. The man mumbled something unintelligible and Rocket realized that he was still asleep.

"Hey? Hey, buddy- You're crushing me," Rocket hissed. Actually the pressure wasn't too bad, was actually sort of comfortable, and eventually he gave up whispering for Drax to get off of him. If he really wanted him to move, he could have just spoken louder. Nobody else was on the shuttle. Drax absently pulled him closer and nuzzled the fur between Rocket's ears, making him bristle. Rocket tried to fall back asleep. He could barely see the light-up clock display from where he was pinned, but it looked like it said 4:12 am.

Drax shifted and his lips pressed against Rocket's ear, tickling the sensitive fur with his hot breath. Rocket felt his dick stir in his sheath, a hard-wired reaction, and thought, _Ah, flark. _It had been a good run. If the big guy woke up now, Rocket would just have to manually override the airlock and have them both sucked into space to avoid the humiliation. Drax's grip relaxed up a little, and he thought for a moment that he was saved, that he could jump out of bed, and later say that he got up early for regular, non-boner reasons. But the arm never lifted away. Instead, Drax's hand moved from where it lay on the sheets and came alarmingly closer to Rocket.

He tried to make himself small. The hand groped around Rocket's shirt for a moment- a loose tank-top that he wore nearly every night to sleep, except on days that it absolutely needed to be washed- until it crept up under the hem and came to rest against his bare belly. Drax's fingers absently rubbed the soft fur and for a second Rocket wondered if the man was asleep or was just messing with him, but he breathed with a soft, even quality that is hard to fake. Rocket considered yelling, or wiggling away with all his strength, and even if it was a little weird, it didn't matter. It couldn't be weirder than letting Drax cop a feel. Then the two worst possible things happened in quick succession, before he could decide one way or the other.

First, Drax's hand fell away from Rocket's belly and went right to the problematic area. Second, the man's even breathing faltered, and he made a sound like, Uhr? And then said, "What time is it? ...Oh."

So Rocket did the only decent thing- He pretended to be asleep. He figured that Drax would be as horrified as he him, and pull away, and with any luck, never speak of it again. Rocket regulated his breathing to feign what he suspected his own sleep sounded like.

But Drax took an oddly long time to retreat. In fact, he dragged his wrist across Rocket's erection as he withdrew- rubbed it really- which sent a volt all through him. It had been awhile. Apparently it had also been awhile for Drax, who's fingers lingered against the fabric of his shirt for just a beat too long before he lifted his massive arm away. Rocket felt suddenly chilly, despite being a furry mammal.

He pretended to have just woken up. "Hmm?" His eyes fluttered open.

"Go back to sleep, friend. You had a nightmare. You called for Groot."

Rocket's eyes snapped open. "You were _awake_ for that?"

Drax didn't reply for a moment, and Rocket turned to look at him. The man's strong profile was faintly illuminated by the green light of the digital clock, and he was frowning. "You were up, as well."

"Is that a joke?" Rocket asked, surprise trumping his embarrassment, but barely.

"No," Drax said, sounding confused. "What do you mean? ...Oh, I get it! Up!" Then he laughed so hard that he nearly shoved Rocket off the bed, Rocket sat up, legs hanging over the side, the object of Drax's amusement having retreated into it's sheath. Nothing likes to be laughed at.

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. I'll go kill myself now."

"You are exaggerating to make a point. Do not be embarrassed, small companion. It is a natural reaction to my considerable sex appeal."

"Give me a break!" Rocket cried, and was grateful- as he had been many times before- that nobody could see him blush through the fur on his face, because he flushed bright crimson now. He looked away fixedly, but made no move to leave. _Damn, I might have a phobia about being alone. I should look into that. _There was a sharp pain in his tail and it derailed his train of thought. He whipped around to look over his shoulder, and saw that Drax lay on his side facing him, one arm folded under his head, his free hand skittering away. He was grinning.

"Hey! A man's tail is personal," He tried to swat at Drax, but the larger man caught his wrist and pulled him backwards onto the bed. "Ack!"

Drax released Rocket's arm and moved as if to pin him under one meaty bicep, but Rocket was too fast, and he scampered under Drax's armpit and onto his chest. Once he got there, he wasn't sure what to do- he sure as hell couldn't pin his much larger friend. So instead he leaned over and pulled one of Drax's ears. He expected to be lifted up, maybe tossed off the bed, but Drax just laughed, and then Rocket laughed too. He became acutely aware that he was sitting on Drax's chest, smiling goofily at him like a lovestruck pup.

"Uhm, I... I gotta piss," he said, and abruptly clambered off, his heart hammering. Drax yawned and stretched languidly, the blanket bunched around his waist, and Rocket could see just how built he was. _Considerably sex appeal, indeed. _Rocket hurried out of the room and leaned against the door when it whooshed shut behind him. Could he really be having these feelings for _Drax_? And what feelings were those, exactly? Besides the not-unpleasant sensation of tightening in his sheath, he wasn't sure. The body wanted crazy things when it was deprived too long.

He went to the tiny bathroom. As he held his hand over the motion sensor controls to turn the water on, and flicked his wrist to adjust the temperature, he replayed the morning in his mind. He thought it was weird that Drax had heard Rocket having a nightmare and, instead of waking him, had spooned him. He wondered if that was the first time Drax had gotten cozy with him like that, but Rocket had been sleeping so hard the past couple weeks that he wouldn't have known. The thought gave him a queer tingle in his belly. _Queer sounds like the right word for it._

He stepped into shower with a sigh. Immediately the hot water running through his fur relaxed him. The steam worked on his sinuses, which always gave him trouble- the way the scientists had shaped his muzzle to be capable of speech had screwed something up in his nasal cavity- and made his head feel blessedly clear- although still alarmingly full of the mental images, of the smooth arc of Drax's stomach, his coiled muscles, and his tattoos shifting like snakes in the shadowy bedroom. Rocket's dick was completely out of it's sheath now and he stroked himself, and tried to make a hard left turn with his thoughts.

But his mind kept returning back to the bedroom that morning- the hot breath in his ears, Drax's wandering hands- he had been _awake, _he remembered, with a shiver of excitement- and even the man's laughing eyes, bright in the darkness, when they had wrestled. It was the sudden idea that Drax might be thinking about the same thing over in the next room, separated by a single thin wall, and that his hands might be wandering again, or even taking care of himself with feverish purpose, that pushed Rocket over the edge. He bit his lip as he came.

The morning was passed in awkward silence between the two friends, until Rocket finally retreated to his quarters to be alone with his rampant filthy thoughts.


	4. Chapter 4

The duo watched the greasy black pillar of smoke on the horizon, Drax from where he reclined in the grass, Rocket from a fencepost. He stood on his toes and craned his neck to get a better look at the flames still licking the distant building. They had gotten the flark out of there in a hurry after setting the blaze, and now they admired their workmanship. Rocket turned the data-chip over and over between his fingers. So much fuss for something so small.

"Hope we got it all," Rocket said.

"I am sure it will be fine."

"I would be sure, if _someone _had listened, and not gone batshit crazy with the flamethrower before the data transfer was complete."

Drax grinned dreamily. "I enjoyed the flamethrower."

"Yeah, I noticed."

If they hadn't retrieved all the data, it was too late now. Rocket preferred to know as little about his clients as possible, but he gathered from the tight defenses of the now-destroyed facility that they were not the kind to keep back-ups, for security reasons. Whatever was on this disc was most likely the only copy.

"Oh well. They'll pay anyway. They see you coming, and they'll pay up for sure," Rocket said, hopping down to join Drax on the hill. The two couldn't have been more conspicuous- A bipedal raccoon and a muscular maniac with tattoos over his entire body, just lying around in the grass. But they were hidden from the road by a copse of purple trees, and Rocket's sharp senses would let him to detect anyone before they got too close. So now they relaxed, crushing the long stems of small white flowers, and watched the cloud of smoke being swept overhead by a western breeze, and listened to birds sing- poo-tee-weet- and the firetrucks clang past, out of sight.

"Guess that's it," Rocket said, glancing over at Drax. "Are you going back to- um-" He had never actually asked what Drax had been doing when he'd recruited him, so he finished with, "Are you gonna leave?"

Drax considered. "Do you wish me to go?"

"Hey, I asked you first. But I don't care. I mean, if you need the work, I guess I could stir something up. I could go with you on some of them, you know, same as we've been doing... If you've got nothing else lined up, that is." The words were nonchalant, but he heard the need in his own voice, and hoped that Drax wouldn't notice. He didn't want anything for pity. He plucked a long blade of grass and chewed the white root, but the grass was tough and astringent, and he grimaced. Drax was silent for a long while.

"I would like to stay," he concluded, and sat up. A cool breeze ruffled Rocket's fur and he closed his eyes, and let the sun wash over him, and the soot settle in his whiskers. The smells of burning rubber and springtime intertwined.

"Fine with me," Rocket said simply. He clawed at the earth absentmindedly, shifting around the roots of grass, disrupting tiny bugs. For awhile he bobbed in and out of consciousness. Beside him, Drax fidgeted with something- probably those dast swords again, as usual.

Rocket was startled awake as something very light was dropped onto his head. He blinked and sat up, and a little green and white thing tumbled into his lap. He picked it up carefully, and found that it was a flower band- the kind everyone made as a child, except for himself, who had never _really_ been a child- the kind where you poked a hole through one stem and strung through another, where the bloom of the daisy caught and kept it there, and so on, until you had a whole chain of flowers. This particular chain looped around to form a crown, about the size of Rocket's head. He looked up to see Drax smiling.

"What the heck is it?" Rocket asked. The real question was why would a grown man would string a daisy chain for another grown man.

"It is a symbol. Like a metaphor."

"And it means...?"

Drax seemed to have to ponder that one. "Oh, I don't know. I did not think that deeply into it." He frowned. "You do not like it?"

Rocket did like it. "No, it's... fine. It's weird, I mean, really flarkin' bizarre-" He saw the shadow of disappointment cross Drax's face, and added, "But I like it."

He placed it gingerly on his own head, where one side slipped over his ear, so it hung lopsided. Drax reached over and tucked it back over his ear. Rocket felt like a real dork with that thing on his head, but then Drax did something that made it totally worth the embarrassment. Instead of pulling his hand away, he scratched gentle circles in Rocket's fur, right in that spot behind his ear that always itched the most. Rocket willed his eyes not to roll back in his head and his leg not to kick.

"I am sorry," Drax said, and retreated. "I know that you are not an animal. But you have such pleasing fur, I find it hard not to touch."

"Uh. You can... touch it. If you want. My fur, I mean." Again he blushed furiously. "Look, I shouldn't have to feel embarrassed! You're the one who just told me you wanted to touch my fur."

"I would not try to embarrass you, my friend," Drax replied, and scratched Rocket under the silly flower crown, and rubbed his temples and stroked his cheeks, and by the time he started on his neck, Rocket had stretched out with his head on Drax's thigh. "Yow," Rocket said dreamily, loving the hard line of his friend's short fingernails against his skin. Drax didn't pet him like a cat, gently and on the surface of the fur, but really got after it, like how people scratch a dog. Rocket experienced an instinctive memory of grooming, programmed into his very DNA, and his throat produced a low, involuntary hum.

"I t-thought you said you wouldn't embarrass me," Rocket teased, and groaned as Drax found a particularly sweet spot under his jaw.

"I cannot help how you feel. I do not wish to shame you. On my planet-" Rocket felt himself tuning out at the frequently spoken phrase. Time for another history lesson in whatever the hell Drax is, yippee, so fascinating. "It is not uncommon for men to take up the company of other men, even men who are married, when they are away from their families. Repressed sexual energy distracts a warrior from his duties."

Rocket snorted. "What about the old stand-by?" He made the universal gesture for jerking off in the air with one loosely clenched fist. Drax stared down at him blankly.

"Gambling?"

"What? Rocket asked, now confused as well.

"Are you not pantomiming the roll of a die?"

Rocket stared at him for awhile, and then shook his head. "No, you lunkhead, it's not. But I guess that answer explains who whole 'dudes getting it on with other dudes' thing on your planet. Anyways, why are you telling me about that?" Rocket asked, as if he didn't know. As if he didn't feel Drax's fingers working on the hem of his pants. "You want to... uh... release sexual energy... with _me?_"

"Your behavior seemed to indicate a desire to couple. I only want you to know that I understand. And that I..." Drax's nonchalant attitude slipped for a moment. His voice wavered, and he glanced away. "I would find it... agreeable."

_What behavior? _Rocket wondered, and then realized that he was somehow lying completely in Drax's lap, curled up between his crossed legs, with the man's pretty obvious erection poking into his side_._ He had no memory of how he would up here, only the sheer bliss of fingers prodding the sensitive spots around his temples and ears. The back of his head lay over Drax's thigh and he gazed up at the man, across the gentle curves of his abs and the harsh etchings of the scrawled tattoos, his eyes coming to rest on his rugged but somehow gentle face, and thought, _Yeah, I guess that would be agreeable._

"You called it. I'm kind of falling you, you big lug. But if you tell anyone, I'll skin ya and feed you to a sablecroc." And he's only half joking. The idea of anyone else finding out, especially any of the other Guardians, filled him with so much dread that he almost told Drax to forget the whole thing.

But then Drax's fingers found the clasp on Rocket's pants, and the whole thing was back on.


	5. Chapter 5

A week later, Rocket worried again about the possibility of being found out, while he chatted with Peter Quill through the holo-comm. The other Guardian had some exciting news that he wanted to tell them in person.

"What about Groot? Where's he at? I want to invite him to the- wait, forget I said that, I can't tell you yet. But he'd wanna know about it too." Quill asked. They had just made plans for Drax and Rocket to join him on the Milano the next day, and Rocket had been lulled into an agreeable mood by their idle conversation. Now he glared.

"Forget him," Rocket hissed. The venom in his own voice surprised him. He hadn't thought about Groot as often lately, but the old wounds had apparently only scabbed over, and they hurt when picked at.

"O-kay," Quill said cautiously. He looked a question to Drax, who sat a little behind Rocket, in view of the comm-screen. Rocket bristled, feeling irrationally like the two were going behind his back, and didn't give Drax a chance to reply.

"Good stuff, sounds like a plan, see you soon," he said and hung up the holo-comm before Quill could speak. Rocket whipped around. "I suppose you wanted to say goodbye. Well, sorry, but I'm not sorry. He was being a dick." Although he hadn't. Quill had no idea what went on between Rocket and Groot, nobody did, so how could he have known not to ask about him?

Drax didn't argue, though, and Rocket loved him for that. _Not loved._ Liked, as a friend. A friend that he lived with, and slept beside, and sometimes caressed from the time they went to bed until the wee hours of the morning. It was easy to lose track of time in space. No rising sun threw it's slanted light through the shuttle's domed and pitted windows to tell them when they'd stayed up all night, rubbing and nuzzling, and fondling each other into a stupor, until they looked over at the electric green clock and realized that it was eight in the morning and they hadn't slept at all.

Fondling was about all they did. Drax always wanted to do more, Rocket could tell, but he couldn't bring himself to it. He had his reasons. Only Groot knew them, and as far as Rocket was concerned, even that was one person too many. He suddenly realized that Drax was staring at him, and that he had been glazed over, resting his chin in his hand. He cleared his throat.

"I'll set the auto-pilot. We're meeting up at Knowhere tomorrow."

"I know. I was here the entire time."

Rocket shuffled off. "Right, yeah. I knew that." He felt drained already by the prospect of visiting with another of the Guardians after they'd been so long on their own, without any galactic evils to combat. Was something like that what Peter wanted to tell them about? Nah, Quill wasn't a maniac like the rest of them, he wouldn't have been so tickled by the prospect of bloodshed. Something else, then. Rocket was feeling curious as he tapped codes into the outdated shuttle's autopilot. He was standing up on the chair, peering into a screen, double checking co-ordinates, when Drax strolled up behind him.

He could sense him standing back there, even before a pair of large hands rested on his shoulders, massaging them through his shirt. Rocket rumbled.

"Hey, not right now. I have to... do... something. And then I was going to... nap... Ungh." Drax's fingers went to the small of his back, crept under his shirt and scratched the sensitive area right below his implants. "You're a dog, you know that?"

"And you are a raccoon-like biped that I would very much like to take to bed," Drax crooned, in that surprisingly seductive voice that Rocket had been shocked to hear for the first time, having thought the man had only two modes- impassive and maniacal. But Drax possessed a secret well of tenderness that Rocket had not suspected. It was that side of him that nearly succeeded in luring Rocket to bed now.

"I can't, really. I'm busy."

"Are you certain that you cannot make time? Even if I-" and then Drax whispered something into Rocket's ear, something so filthy that it made his toes curl and his heart jump into his throat.

"Uh... no... not even if you do all that. I'm not even sure we _could_ do all that. And... you know I don't... you know. I don't do that stuff."

Drax pulled away, and Rocket turned to look at him. The larger man seemed deep in thought.

"What? What is it?" Rocket demanded.

"I know that you have had intimacy with women, because you always tell everyone about it, in extremely graphic detail."

"Ugh, don't call it intimacy. That makes it sound weird."

But Drax hadn't finished. "And I also know that you have no problem with the male form. I have experienced this firsthand. Yet, when I attempt to take things further, you reject my advances."

Rocket groaned and got down from his chair, as though physically removing himself from the situation would somehow postpone the line of questioning forever. Drax pursued him into the living quarters.

Rocket threw up his hands. "What do you want me to say? I just don't want to do it!"

"I respect you, and I would never force you into anything you didn't wish to do. I just wonder why intimacy with me-"

"Just _stop it_, Drax! We're not... boyfriends, or lovers, or something. I don't owe you anything. You talk about 'intimacy', and your 'advances', but why don't you just come out and say it? You want to fuck me. In the mouth, in the ass. Or you want me to fuck you. You say it with all those big words, like you always do, but that's what you mean, right? But I _can't. _And I don't have to explain it to you."

He had lost his temper, and rattled off without even turning to see Drax's reaction. His narrow shoulders hitched as he was wracked by waves of emotion, of his own demons, rising out of his past. "Sorry, but... I'm not sorry." It was another mantra of Rocket's, one he only said when he really _was_ sorry, but unable to swallow his pride.

"It really is none of my business," Drax said, but his voice had turned to ice.

Tears stung Rocket's eyes as he retreated to his own quarters for the first time in weeks. _Stop being so pathetic, _his own mind goaded him. _When did you get to be such a bitch? _If he had to guess, it was probably around the first time that Drax had stuck his damned hands where they didn't belong. He had messed with Rocket's head, big time, and made him forget who he was. This room was who Rocket was- small and uncomfortable, and offensive with it's unfinished surfaces and the clutter of machine parts over every surface, but it was suitable. It was fine. And he wanted to be just fine again too, not walking around with his heart out in the open, where some clumsy idiot could tread on it as easily as asking a few questions. _It's for the best_, he thought, as he laid out on his own cot. Dust puffed out of the disused sheets and tickled his nose, and he sneezed.

He must have dozed off for awhile because when a knock came at his door, he looked at the clock and saw that it had jumped ahead by an hour. "Come in," he said sleepily, before his anger and hurt had time to reassert itself.

The door whooshed open and Drax stepped hesitantly inside, and it closed behind him. _Trapping him. Trapping me, too._ Rocket thought. "What?" Rocket snapped.

"I did not mean what I said before," Drax said.

"Flark! You didn't say anything! You just _existed,_" Rocket yelled, feeling out of control of himself all over again.

"What I said about it being none of my business," Drax continued, as though he hadn't heard Rocket's outburst. "I want to make it my business. I deserve to know."

Rocket could not believe the man's gall, could not believe that he had heard him correctly. "What?" he asked, stunned.

"Tell me why you don't wish to... to... fuck." The last word came painfully, with belabored enunciation, and Rocket smiled a little despite himself. But he was still mad. He glared at Drax. The man stood boldly before him, demanding that he drop his defenses, and he was almost convincing in his display of courage, but Rocket could see his fingers tremble. Just a little, just enough to betray the simmering emotion underneath.

Rocket looked down, and almost refused again. He could have, and it would be within his rights, but it would effectively put an end to whatever was happening between himself and Drax. How could be fool himself into thinking otherwise? How did Rocket think he could have a relationship, especially a sexual relationship with a male, without this disclosure? To try to force the words from himself was torture. He thought that to open himself up now that way would be as painful as the scientists opening him up on the carving board, but it had to happen. Some part of Rocket had already decided.

"Flark it. Sit down. And don't look at me. Okay?"

Drax nodded, and sat on the cot beside Rocket. They positioned themselves back to back, staring at the blank walls on either side of the small space, and Rocket slouched against Drax's muscular back with a sigh.

"You remember when we met? In the prison?" As if Drax would have forgotten. The questions only served to delay the heart of the matter, so Rocket didn't wait for a reply. "Well, you probably saw what went down in the mess-hall. That big mother-flarker was saying all that... stuff... to Quill, and then Groot made a mess of his face. And I told everyone to stay away from Quill, which was good, but Groot didn't _really_ do it for him. He was trying to protect me." If Drax had any idea where Rocket was going with this, he gave no indication. So he took a deep breath and continued.

"I've escaped from twenty-one prisons, but I didn't always have Groot to protect me. And I don't know if you noticed this, 'cos people tell me all the time that I look fierce for my size, but I'm pretty small. Really small. So if someone wants to overpower me... I... usually am. Overpowered."

"You were raped." Rocket was alarmed by the bluntness of Drax's words, although he shouldn't have been. He knew Drax well enough by then. Still, it jarred him.

"...Yeah."

They sat in silence for a moment. "I would never do anything against your consent. You are my friend. Perhaps my dearest friend."

"I know, buddy. I'm not worried about that." The words are painful to get out, because a lump of emotion has swollen in his throat. He could never remember the events of that time without a healthy dose of pain. He had escaped from that prison, of course, and later gone back later and murdered every last one of the bastards. But he had never escaped from the nightmares that plagued him afterward, in which shadowy figures hold him down and stick their things everywhere, filling him far more than he is meant to be filled, and he cries because of the pain, but more because of the shame. And every time he woke with a confused boner, and that was even worse than the nightmares, because it made him feel responsible in some way.

But he _had_ finally escaped the nightmares, in Drax's arms.

"Do you wish to cease our sexual relationship, then?" Drax asked quietly.

Rocket was surprised by the force of his aversion to the idea. "Hell no!" he cried, and rubbed his temples. "Actually, I was gonna say... maybe... maybe I can try some of that stuff... the intimacy stuff." He used that phrase as a joke, but he also found himself liking it. It implied more than the physical action. Still, the word emerged from of his mouth as uncomfortably as 'fuck' had come from Drax's.

And that night they did try the 'intimacy stuff', as Rocket had so eloquently put it. They took it slow, and Drax did a hell of a lot more for Rocket than the other way around, but he planned to repay the favor in time, and there would certainly be plenty more times. At the end of the day, Rocket was just happy to have someone who understood.


	6. Chapter 6

"They made a movie about us!" Peter exclaimed, almost immediately, as Drax and Rocket set foot into the Milano. He positively bubbled with energy.

"_Who _made a movie about us?" Rocket asked, disbelieving.

"Some Earth company. I knew about it, but I didn't want to tell you until it was finished, in case they scrapped the project. But it's done! We're invited to a screening in two weeks!"

Rocket groaned and collapsed into one of the seats around the Milano's much larger table. "Who did they cast to be me?"

"Even if Quill told you, would you recognize the person?" Drax asked, before Quill had a chance to reply.

"Nah, guess not. But is he bad? Is he _really_ bad? Tell it to me straight, pete, I've gotta know. And how advanced is Terran graphics rendering technology, huh? Flark me. I'm going to look terrible."

Quill laughed and sat down at the table, and Drax sat as well. Gamora emerged from upstairs and smiled at them. "It's good to see you again."

"It is a pleasure to be reunited with you as well, Gamora," Drax said, which surprised Rocket. Relations between those two had been chilly at best, but that was the last time Rocket had seen everyone together, and nearly a year had passed since then. Rocket realized that he still had no idea what Drax had been doing during that time. His sharp senses picked up minute details of their interaction- Drax's bashful grin, and the way Gamora's body oriented more towards him than either Quill or Rocket, and most telling, the way she glanced quickly away when he spoke her name.

Rocket shot a look to Drax that said everything. _You SLEPT with her! _His blazing eyes said, and Drax replied with a shrug. What the flark did that mean? Rocket concocted an expression that managed to convey not only that he was _aware_ of the sex in question, but also that he was pissed about it, and the most Drax could muster was a shrug, which could mean any number of things.

"Anyway, back to the movie! It's going to be sweet! The best part is that we can go without causing a huge clusterfuck, because the movie is getting a lot of buzz, so we'll just just look like we're dressed as the characters. Oh." He looked right at Rocket, who was still trying to telepathically converse with Drax.

"What?" he snapped at Quill, when he noticed his gaze.

"How are we supposed to explain you? You're pretty obviously a walking, talking raccoon. I guess we could pretend that you're a stuffed animal."

"What?! No way! Drax, help me out, buddy. I'm one of the main characters in the movie and I have to sneak into the theater? That's crap!"

But Drax was too busy staring at Gamora to come to his aid. The woman was trying her damnedest not to engage him, although his eyes must have been boring into her. Rocket felt half a shade away from flying into a tantrum.

"Just until we get inside, man. Just be cool," Quill pleaded, begging with his voice- Don't ruin this for me. "It's so great, you'll see. They used my mix for the soundtrack. The actual songs are in the movie! How amazing is that?"

"Yeah, just super. I'll go. And I'll be cool. But you have to do one thing for me."

"Sure, what is it?"

"If you find Groot... you can't invite him. Or you can, but I won't be there if you do." Rocket avoided looking at the traitorous Drax, or at any of them for that matter. He slouched back in his chair, arms crossed.

"What happened between you two?" Gamora asked. "You were so close before."

"Mind your own business! Since when did this become such a team of busy-bodies? I feel like I'm suffocating here."

"Alright, alright. I won't invite Groot," Quill conceded, holding his palms up in a gesture of submission. "You'll see him in the movie, though. Can't do anything about that."

_Oh well,_ Rocket thought. _Terran technology is probably terrible anyways, and it won't look a thing like him._

"Hey," Quill said, looking at Drax now. "Did you get new tattoos? Or can you even do that? I thought it was some kind of cultural thing."

Now Rocket did look at Drax, and his heart jolted when he saw what Quill was referring too. What he confused for tattoos were actually claw marks. They started around the back of Drax's neck and ran across his shoulders, and all the way down to mid-chest. Rocket had accidentally put them there during the most adventures part of their night, when Drax's wandering fingers had explored a long-neglected area, and had even probed inside. It hadn't hurt, but it had shocked him. And there had been other sensations, which even in this uncomfortable situation made his pants feel tighter just to think about. The marks did not look convincingly like tattoos, in Rocket's opinion. He shot Drax another loaded look.

Gamora squinted and noticed what Quill was talking about as well, but recognition quickly lit up her face, while Quill still looked confused as everyone stared around the table and said nothing. "Uh... is that an inappropriate question, or something..?"

Drax still just sat there, and Rocket willed him to speak. Quill had offered him a perfect out. Finally, the large man seemed to work it through. "...Yes."

"Yes what?"

"It is an inappropriate question," Drax responded, as though it were obvious. Peter Quill continued to look baffled.

"...Right. Okay. Well, this was a good meeting. Are you two going to stay for awhile?"

'You two' is what Quill had said. Which meant that Gamora wasn't going anywhere, she was staying with him, and now subtext flew across the room even more feverishly. _You are sleeping with HIM? _Drax seemed to demand, while Gamora still looked the question, _Who gave those claw marks to YOU? _While Rocket's own face screamed _Get me the flark out of here!_ And Peter offered them coffee, blissfully unaware that anything was happening besides good friends sitting in companionable silence.

"Yeah, I think we're gonna take off. We've got some... gun... thing. Uhm... a bounty," Rocket explained, suddenly unable to form anything besides a nonsensical string of words to extract himself from the situation.

"Are you sure?" Quill asked, and Rocket didn't know if he meant, _Are you sure you want to go? _Or if he meant, _Are you sure that's where you're going?_ Because Rocket had not sounded very convincing.

"Sure, I'm sure. Yeesh, I'm getting the third degree again. Come on, Drax." Rocket got to his feet and jumped up on the table. He wanted to rush out of there, true, but it really had been nice enough to see the other Guardians again. He nodded to Gamora, a chilly gesture, but all he could manage for the moment. But with the Star-Lord he shared a fist bump, a thing that Quill had taught all of them. Whatever weirdness had passed between them seemed to be forgiven, judging by the look on his face, and Rocket was relieved. He had no great desire to burn the few bridges he managed to build.

They said their goodbyes and went back to their own dumpy little shuttle, parked nearby in the ship-bay. Rocket had things he wanted to talk about with Drax- not so much that he wanted to talk about them, but felt compelled to. Lately he'd sat on one of Drax's wide shoulders whenever they had to walk somewhere, the same way he used to with Groot, but today he declined the offer of a ride. The situation with Gamora irritated him. He knew he was being ridiculous, but that didn't stop him from stewing over it.

When they got inside, Rocket was prepared to lay into Drax with a volley of questions and accusations, but when the door whooshed closed behind them, he found the man grinning dumbly down at him.

"What is it, you dope?" Rocket asked.

Drax gestured to the claw marks on his chest. "In the symbolism of my culture, if these had been true tattoos, the position would mean something like a cross between a long and happy life with a fellow warrior, and a burden to bear."

Rocket grinned. "No way! You're jerking me around. Wait, I'm not a burden. I mean, you gotta carry me places, so I guess it works that way. So those tattoos mean stuff?"

"Of course." Drax seemed surprised that Rocket didn't know. "Most of them are symbols for my everlasting devotion to my family. Some indicate my status as a warrior. Many more denote my desire for revenge."

"Do all of your people have so _many?"_

"No. I am complex."

"Ohhh, so deep, so mysterious," Rocket teased. He had all but forgotten the business with Gamora for the moment. "You're such a bad boy. I don't know if my dad will let you take me to prom, with all those tattoos."

Drax's brow furrowed with thought, and Rocket clambered up him, and came to wrap his legs around the man's shoulders and rest his chin on top of his bald head. "It's a joke. Never mind. Take me to the bedroom, I wanna sex you up." Rocket didn't have to tell him twice.


	7. Chapter 7

Their next bounty wouldn't be at the location where they would grab him for another week, and Drax and Rocket were quickly bored out of their minds, pacing around the shuttle with nothing to do besides play cards and have sex. They decided to go to the planet early, just to poke around, maybe see if they can stir up their target before the known rendezvous. At least they could stretch their legs. The planet was comparatively large, but drowsy, the entire surface covered with nothing besides oceans and farms, and banded by impassable purple mountains. On the galactic map it was called Terra-4-Jung. The locals, of which there are maybe two hundred in all, called it Menoetius.

"What an inbred bunch of weirdos. And everyone is giant. You must feel right at home," Rocket said to Drax as they strolled down the main street of Menoetius's largest town, which boasted an approximate population of seventy-two. There was even a spaceport a short distance out, although it seemed largely abandoned, except by one gap-toothed man who had tried to tax them for using the rickety old loading bays. He'd looked like a hobo, and Rocket paid him out of pity.

After seeing the rest of the civilians, he realized that the 'hobo' might be the best dressed among them. Everybody walked around in overalls with nothing underneath, or else dresses that seemed to be made from gunny sacks, and might actually have been. The town was in a state of overall dilapidation. As he complained, a group of skinny children in rags chased each other past. Rocket was no stranger to poverty. Most of the places where conducted his business were lousy with the poor, and Rocket was sure as flark no Robin Hood, and the barefooted children made him feel more annoyed than sympathetic. Everything was making him feel annoyed.

"Are you saying that I am an 'inbred weirdo'?" Drax asked.

"No, geez! Why you gotta twist everything I say? I just meant the part about being huge. And you're dressed like them. How come you never wear a shirt?" Rocket slapped the man's wide chest, easy to do from where he perched on his shoulder.

"Nothing ever fits me," Drax mumbled, half to himself.

"You could afford a tailor. This bounty alone would buy you a hundred shirts, but you never use your units for anything, you just save them, and make me buy all the food."

Drax shook him off like a big dog might shake loose a pesky flea. Rocket yelped and landed on his butt a few feet away, bruised but alright. He glared up at Drax.

"What'd you do that for?"

The man frowned. "I thought you would hang on!"

Rocket stood up and rubbed his aching tailbone. "Well, it would be easier if you ever wore a shirt!" Drax offered him a hand to climb back up but Rocket waved him away. He would walk, thanks so much. The pair lumbered onward in silence, searching for some kind of inn. _Preferably one with a tavern,_ Rocket thought wearily.

The sun beat down on them like a physical force, directly overhead, so the buildings on either side of the street could not afford them any shade. At least Drax could sweat. Rocket could too, but much less efficiently. He had not been born created for hot weather climates. His fur clung to him, damp and lifeless, and his whiskers drooped. His attitude boiled underneath, and things that didn't usually bother him bubbled to the surface. For one thing, Drax's shirtless torso was still pissing him off.

Rocket was a furry creature and so was always made modest by that, and still he wore a top in public. Yet Drax had the gall to stroll down main street with his pecs on display, and his muscular back rippling, and sweat running down his spine, and... Rocket shook his head. _Pelvic sorcery,_ he thought, to coin a phrase from Gamora.

"Did your wife mind you walking around like that?"

"How do I walk around?" A cautionary edge crept into Drax's voice, the way it always did when Rocket brought up his wife. They hadn't gotten off on the right foot with that particular topic, and had never completely rectified it. Drax talked about his wife and daughter to Rocket all the time, as excitedly and sweetly as if they were still waiting for him to come back to them, which Rocket supposed they might be, in a way. But anytime Rocket raised the topic, Drax put up his guard.

"You know what I'm talking about! I just said it. You never wear a _shirt_."

For a moment he thought Drax was going to ignore him, but then he said, "You are just looking to pick a fight. I can tell. You do not mind my body."

"What a thing to say!" Rocket cried. "I genuinely want to know. Would your wife want you walking everywhere like that? Wasn't she a modest woman? Or was she more like you?"

"Like me?" Drax asked, although he sounded like he didn't want to hear the reply. He sounded tired of Rocket's shit, and that infuriated him more.

"A slut," Rocket said, and spat in the dirt. Without warning, Drax whipped around and picked him up by this tail, and held him up mere inches from his enraged face. He had never physically struck Rocket before. He had never even come close, not after that one bad argument when they first met. But the raccoonoid had succeeded in his unconscious goal- he had gotten under Drax's skin at last, and baited him into a fight.

"Do NOT bring my wife into this! You and I have become intimate, and I have allowed you close, but you are NOT as important as my family, so_ do not force me to chose_."

Rocket writhed in his grasp, and shouted without thinking. "They're _dead_, Drax! Your family is gone! You couldn't chose them if you wanted to!"

Drax dropped him, and this time Rocket cried out sharply as he landed wrong on his ankle, twisting it. It would swell up- he could tell that much at once. Drax didn't wait to see if he was alright, just kept walking down the street. Rocket glared, but didn't call after him, even though he wanted to. _Sorry, but I'm not sorry._

He limped back to the spaceport. "Flark him, if he wants to do the bounty on his own. He can keep the units. Keep 'em, and not pay for food," he muttered as he walked, as if he actually gave a shit about the cost of food. Drax would have pitched in, if he'd ever asked, but he never had. It had been nice to do that for him. Now it would be ruined, supposing Drax came back to the shuttle at all, and didn't catch a flight on some outbound freighter in the night. Rocket could scarcely believe he'd managed to mess things up so quickly.

He knew that he needed to suck it up and apologize. But the oppressive heat, and the pain in his leg, and his damn stubborn pride, they all weighed him down. They drove him closer to the shabby interior of his shuttle, where he could sulk and lick his wounds in private, and never have to deal with problems. Rocket just wanted to get drunk and feel sorry for himself. Drax would come back if he cared.

It's the thought of Drax that finally slowed his inexorable stride. His friend would be alone somewhere, probably getting into brawls and being thrown out a bar, proclaiming bloody vengeance on the bouncer, and conspiring with his twin blades. If he were still in a bad mood, maybe he would even deliver that vengeance. Rocket found that he wanted to be beside him more than anything. Their fight had been stupid, and Rocket _had _started it just because he was in a rotten mood, and regretted it.

He stopped, turned around in the road, and started back the way he came. He had only been walking for a minute when Drax appeared over the horizon, coming in his direction, heat waves making him shimmer like a homosexual's mirage. _You're the homosexual! Just accept it!_

And he did sort of want to jump into Drax's arms and kiss his face all over, but instead he stopped by the man's feet and kicked the dust idly.

"I'm a flarking idiot." Rocket looked up, but Drax said nothing, just stared down and waited for him to continue. "So, uh, your wife seems like she was great, and, uh. I'm sorry if I- uh, you know- hurt your feelings."

"That was a terrible apology."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see you do better."

"I rented a room at the local lodge. With my own units," he added, but with a glimmer of humor in his eyes, and Rocket bristled happily to see it.

"Yeah, I didn't mean what I said-" he started, but Drax interrupted him.

"If you join me there, I will gladly show you how a real man apologizes."

Rocket raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to murder me, are you?"

"No. The other thing."

_Ooooh,_ Rocket thought, and now his tail visibly puffed up with anticipation. He let Drax carry him on his shoulder through he inn, and on their way upstairs he did give him a whiskery kiss on the cheek, not caring that the few patrons of this dusty old bar in the middle of nowhere saw it. Drax swung him down into his arms and carried him through the threshold of the room like a husband on his wedding night, nuzzling his neck before they'd even got the door shut behind them.

Drax laid him down on the double bed, being extra careful to avoid hurting his twisted ankle. He even kissed it gently, and looked sorrowful over it, which for some reason made Rocket feel like the world's biggest schmuck. "I promised that I would never take advantage of your small stature... but I hurt you."

"I was askin' for it," Rocket dismissed. "I don't know what made me say all that. I know your family is number one, I was an imbecile to talk about them that way. It wasn't even about them. I think I've been... mad at you, lately."

"Mad at me?" Drax laid on the bed beside Rocket, and the raccoon idly flicked him with his face with his tail. Drax absentmindedly stroked the offending brush.

Rocket hated to talk about his feelings. It never came easy to him. "Uh... what happened between you and Gamora? You had sex, right?"

"Only once," Draxx said, solemnly. "She saw that I grieved for my family, and that I suffered more in the evenings. She came to me without clothes, and said that she wanted to ease my pain."

"Did she? Ease your pain?" Rocket asked, unable to look at Drax while he asked.

"Some. Not as much as you have."

And something fluttered in Rocket's chest, and it felt like blossoms falling onto a pond, rippling it's surface into a thousand dazzling shards of light. He couldn't speak.

"Well, I... I'm glad I could help," he eventually said, and wished his grasp of the language was better, broader, or even halfway sufficient to express himself. Barbs of emotion pulled him in different directions. For nearly a week he had been overcome by envy, and during that time Gamora was dead to him, and Drax could get stuffed too, for all he cared. But in the next moment his heart was broken into those million shards of light, dazzling him with an intensity he couldn't hold onto and couldn't look directly at.

"I know that my family is dead," Drax said unexpectedly. "Sometimes I pretend that they are still out there somewhere. It is... hard for me to move on."

"I shouldn't have said that stuff. I don't wanna make you chose between me and your family. I'm no wife."

Drax kissed his mouth, and Rocket wrapped his arms around Drax's neck and parted his lips for him. They rarely kissed like that, and it was galvanizing. The fur along his spine prickled.

"I would chose you," Drax murmured as they pulled away from the kiss, and buried his nose in the fur around Rocket's neck.

"Huh?" Rocket asked, distracted by the man's hand creeping up his shirt.

"If you demanded that I give up avenging my family... I would. My wife would have liked you. You are crazy, like me. She would desire my happiness, and be angry with me if I destroyed what we have together."

Rocket realized that he had gotten himself in deep, much deeper than he had intended to. But he didn't regret it at all, as Drax kissed him all over, and screwed him until he came, mewling, into the mattress. Afterward Rocket snuggled under his partner's chin and told him, _I fucking love you,_ and his own words surprised him. But in a way, they didn't.


	8. Chapter 8

Peter Quill kept his promise. When the Guardians met up to watch the movie premier, Groot was not among them. _Good,_ thought Rocket, but a tiny part of him wished that Quill had gone behind his back and invited the stupid tree. They landed the Milano in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D facility because they had some technology to block the incoming craft from detection by Terran satellites. The four of them were escorted to the theater in an unmarked SUV. They had tried to make Rocket sit in a seat designed for human toddlers, for safety reasons, but then Rocket broke someone's arm, which closed the issue. Two agents, in bodyguard suits and sunglasses, were sent along with them.

"What do we need these losers for? We're the Guardians of the whole flarkin' galaxy! What can they protect us from that we can't take care of ourselves, huh?" Rocket asked from the backseat.

The agents shared a quick glance, probably considering how much to say.

"We aren't here to guard you."

"Huh?" Rocket was confused for a moment. "Oh! I get it! They sent you to keep everyone else safe from _us._" He laughed maniacally, and Gamora rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure it wont be necessary," said Suit #1. They had not bothered to introduce themselves by name, so Rocket had decided to refer to them as Suits #1 and #2. "We're only along as a precaution."

"Exactly. Because I'm sure _everyone_ will be on their _best behavior_," Quill said, looking first at Drax and then at Rocket, pointedly. The man could barely be serious long enough to glare at them. All the way from the Milano, through the headquarters, and into the van, he had been vibrating with excitement over the movie.

"I can't make any promises." Rocket slouched in the seat. He could see Drax, in the seat diagonally ahead of him, cover his mouth with a hand. Anyone else might think he was politely covering a yawn, but Rocket knew he was hiding a laugh. It always tickled him to see Rocket give someone else attitude. The ride to the theater seemed to take forever, and by the time they arrived, Rocket was already tired of sitting. The doors slid open and everyone piled out, but before he could follow, Drax put out an arm to stop him.

"I must to carry you."

"What, why? I got feet, I can walk." He was dying to stretch his legs after being cramped in the car for so long.

Quill's head popped back into view. "Do it for me?" His damn big puppy-dog eyes were so pathetic that Rocket sighed, and hopped into Drax's waiting arms. Peter cheered up immediately. "Don't forget to act floppy! And no talking."

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. I'm a stuffed animal."

A funny look crossed Drax's face- blink and you'd miss it. _No way,_ Rocket thought. _Did he just think of a dirty joke? _Kind of an obvious one, but for the always literal Drax, it was a big deal. The implications of stuffed animal crossed Rocket's brain reflexively and he blushed. He hadn't had such regular sex in... well, ever. It was turning them into a couple of horny teenagers. Whoever thought up that stuff about warriors sleeping together in order to maintain focus was full of crap.

They didn't have to go through the box office. S.H.I.E.L.D had ordered their tickets ahead of time, and arranged for popcorn and sodas to be waiting for them.

"I told them to do that," Quill boasted. The lobby echoed with clanging and laughing children from a smaller room off the main hub, the sign over which read 'Arcade', and everything reeked of fatty, salty food. The four of them attracted more attention then Rocket expected as they crossed the open space, and he felt like an animal in a zoo.

One pair of humans in particular ogled at them, as they received their snacks from the gangly teen at the concession counter. The two pointed and whispered to each other for awhile before working up the courage to approach the group.

"Wow," breathed the woman, as she got close enough to see the detail of Drax's tattoos. "That's incredible. Can I touch them...?"

Drax stared at her blankly for so long that even Rocket felt awkward. "...Yes," he said at last, apparently unable to find a way out of the situation.

She reached out and touched the raised tattoo on his bicep, running her fingers down his arm along the length of the pattern, and Rocket bristled angrily. _Oops. _Fortunately, nobody saw his lip curl and the fur raise along his neck. "They're so real! This must have taken forever."

The woman's partner- her husband, Rocket assumed, by the fact that they both wore rings in the custom of married humans- peered at him, eyes wide behind a pair of glasses. Then he touched Rocket's limp hand and it took all of his willpower to not to leap up and rip the guy's face off.

"Well, we've got to get moving! Thanks though," Quill said hurriedly and herded them away from the curious fans. "Geez. Maybe this wasn't the greatest idea."

But once they bustled into the theater and got sat down in the back row- Rocket on Drax's lap, because it would look funny to buy a seat for a stuffed animal- and flanked on either side by the two S.H.E.I.L.D agents, it seemed like things might work out. They all behaved themselves throughout the trailers, and then the agents passed them each a pair of glasses.

"What are these for?" Rocket whispered.

"The movie is in 3D," Suit #2 replied.

What the hell did that mean? But Rocket obediently put on the glasses, which was obviously just as weird as if he'd had his own seat, so it seemed like a waste that he had to sit here and be bombarded by whatever popcorn missed Drax's mouth. It was a _lot_ of popcorn.

"What sorcery is this?" Drax said loudly as the first 3D sequence rolled.

"Shhhhh! It's just the glasses. Take them off and look," Quill instructed.

Drax glared suspiciously at him, but tried it, looked at the screen, put the glasses back on, looked, then repeated the process a couple more times for good measure, until Rocket wanted to throttle him. Finally he settled back to watch the movie, and Rocket leaned back against his chest. At least he had a good view of the screen, where he probably would have had trouble seeing it from his own seat. It also didn't hurt that Drax had wrapped an arm around his waist as soon as the lights dimmed.

"Are you alright?" Gamora whispered to Quill after the opening sequence, in which a young actor playing Peter witnessed his mother's death. Rocket had been wondering how his friend would take it as well, so he listened.

"Yeah. Actually... I'm frickin' PUMPED!" A few people shushed him. Rocket smiled. He supposed that Quill had visited that awful time so frequently in his mind that he was unfazed by seeing it acted out by strangers. The beginning credits started, and Rocket found himself sucked in at once. Peter's goofy dance across the temple, and hearing that song again for what seemed like the millionth time, all worked to tug at his heartstrings. The Guardians had been scattered lately, and although they were far away most of the time, Rocket loved the hell out of his friends. It took hearing those incredibly familiar, nonsensical lyrics again- _Nothin's a matter with your head, baby, find it_\- to bring his affection bubbling to the surface.

He must have shivered because Drax wrapped his arm tighter around him, and Rocket laid his cheek against his bicep. When Rocket's character finally debuted, he was surprised by how good the graphics were, on him and Groot both. "Almost as sexy as the real thing, eh?" he said aloud, not sure who he was talking to. Gamora smiled and shook her head. It was impossible for Rocket to watch the movie from an unbiased perspective. It gave him a surreal feeling to watch events unfold _nearly _as they happened, but not quite. Despite that, he had to admit the film makers had done an admiral job of compressing what had been such a complex situation into a two hour running time, and still have the story make sense.

Rocket was briefly shown without clothing during the prison montage, and he felt oddly embarrassed about it, even though it was a CGI figure and not himself up there. But it was him, in a way, or at least pretty damn close to the real thing, right down the scars and the ports where he had been hooked up to tubes at one time. The idea of all the people around him, and millions more elsewhere, seeing those awful valves on his back... it disturbed him. Also, having to watch such a well-rendered approximation of Groot messed with his head a lot more than he expected. He felt absurdly jealous of his CGI doppelganger whenever he clambered up Groot's familiar trunk, or translated for him, or they fought side by side.

Drax cheered him up, though. By the time the movie was half over, the huge man was dangerously close to being bounced from the theater. "They are trying to make me look like an idiot!" he cried indignantly around the third scene where he misunderstood someone, although when Quill challenged him on it, he admitted that all of those conversations had happened. "But I also did other things. I snapped a guard's neck with my bare hands. Why did they not include that? It was a very character defining moment."

Other notable outbursts included him leaping out of his seat when Thanos appeared on the screen, sending Rocket sprawling onto the sticky floor, and demanding to be told how the camera crews gotten out there. Then he became so fidgety during the fight between himself and Ronan that Rocket almost moved to Quill's lap. When a weapon was thrown so that the 3D made it appeal to hurdle directly toward the viewers, Drax's hand shot up to catch it. He opened his fist and stared disbelievingly at his empty palm.

"This is a mystery to me as well," Gamora said. "Why do humans pay to be tricked into believing they will be killed by a warrior's blade? That is just... retarded."

"You've _got _to stop talking," Suit #2 reiterated, as she tried to disappear into her seat. "Or the ushers will make us all leave."

"Who are the 'Ushers'? Are they a mighty race of warriors? I would gladly accept their challenge! Let them attempt to evict me from this auditorium," Drax boomed.

Rocket rolled his eyes. He didn't want to get kicked out, so he found a way to keep Drax distracted for awhile. Rocket stealthily unbuttoned Drax' pants, and slipped his hand inside. The man jolted, but had the good sense to stay still and silent after that, as Rocket pawed him in secret. After awhile the bulge in his pants became so large that Rocket could barely perch on his lap anymore, and Drax panted and trembled, to the point that someone might notice. _That would be bad,_ Rocket thought, and pulled his hand away. By then, Ronan was taking the Guardians to task aboard the Dark Aster.

Drax- the real one, not the actor that he had loudly proclaimed by 'too tiny by far' to play himself- buttoned his pants, but then placed a firm palm flat against Rocket's own tented crotch. He rolled his hips upward, subtly enough that nobody would have seen it, grinding his concealed erection against Rocket's rear. All the blood rushed out of his head and made him dizzy. He barely saw his CGI double crashing into the Aster's main deck.

He slapped at Drax's bare belly, a gesture that he hoped would say, C_ut that out- _but in his distracted condition he just wound up gripping the man's muscular side. Drax pressed against him again, now rubbing his fingers in small circles over Rocket's crotch. He would definitely have a small, revealing wet spot on the inside of his usually loose-fitting trousers when they got out of the theater, Rocket realized, and just hoped that it it wouldn't show all the way through. That would be difficult to explain.

"We are Groot." Rocket snapped out of his haze. On the screen, Groot's eyes shimmered with reflected phosphorescent light. CGI Rocket sniffled and wept, and the real life version soon teared up as well. The movie makers did an extraordinary job capturing the feeling. Rocket's heart broke fresh as O-O-H Child crackled over a busted speaker, and cut to the macabre vision of Groot's blasted remains strewn across the dusty landscape.

Drax must have heard Rocket snuffling, or maybe he sensed it, because he quit teasing right away and petted the top of his head comfortingly, the way he always did when something had got Rocket really worked up. When the on-screen Drax mirrored the motion with the sobbing raccoonoid (had he really wept so openly? Unfortunately, he was pretty sure he had.) Rocket was surprised. He had forgotten all about that. Not only had Drax tried to comfort him, but he had actually allowed himself to be comforted, and when Drax brought him the soil in the pot, Rocket had humored him.

_He saved Groot,_ Rocket remembered. With shame that brought tears stinging to his eyes again, he thought about what he had said to Drax. _We all got dead people, _he'd told him, as the man grieved for his lost wife and child. Rocket rarely thought about it, and had never followed it up with the memory of Drax's support for him when the thing with Groot happened. Considering it now made Rocket feel like the absolute worst person in the galaxy.

"Why did you do it?" he whispered, not caring if the Suits reprimand him. "Why?"

"He is your best friend. He is my friend, too, and I care about you both."

Neither Quill or Gamora silenced them, and Rocket could tell they were both eavesdropping on the conversation. He was too upset to give a flark.

"You didn't have to... I didn't deserve it." _I don't deserve you,_ he added in his mind.

Drax hugged him. "Do not be a... what is the correct term? A drama-queen."

Rocket let out a watery little laugh, and sighed, and he did feel a bit better. He looked sharply at the two other Guardians and they quickly turned their gazes back to the screen. He snuggled back against Drax and thought about something. In addition to being mad at himself- hating himself, really- he was also mad at Drax. That was flarkin' ridiculous, of course. But in Rocket's mind, he felt that Drax had only given him false hope after all, just like he'd suspected from the moment he planted that unassuming twig in the dirt, because he still didn't have Groot back. Or he had, but then his friend left of his own will, which was even worse. But Rocket couldn't blame Drax for that. Everyone left him eventually.

_What the hell is everyone still sitting around for?_ He wondered, as the credits rolled. The four of them and the two Suits had to shuffle around everyone's knees on their way out of the theater.

Peter bombarded them with gleeful questions as soon as they emerged into the well-lit hall, the heart of which was- "Did you like it?" Everyone did, even Gamora, although she was annoyed that the movie downplayed her own considerable combat prowess. Everyone's main complaint was that they thought they should be portrayed as more of a bad-ass. Gamora also instigated an uncomfortable line of questioning with Quill as they made their way back to the SVU, regarding the poor woman he had forgotten about on his ship. "That was _bad_ thing to do," she concluded. Quill looked like he'd like to be anywhere else.

The ride back to the HQ was a lot more pleasant than the ride out, with everyone still buzzing about their big screen debut. Rocket had that song stuck in his head- _Cause' you're fine, and you're mine, and you look so divine, baby. Come and get your love!_ So he hummed the tune, and felt at home with the excited chatter of his friends in his ears.


	9. Chapter 9

After the premier, Peter Quill became obsessed with the idea of 'getting the band back together', as he put it. Constant invitations- to dinner, to bars, to sporting events, to go bowling- lit up their holo-comm at all hours, Peter's wide eyes and wider smile looming too close to the screen, and making Rocket feel trapped in his own shuttle. "Fine!" he conceded one day, as Peter's comm-tone echoed through the living quarters for the fourth time that week. The hour was late and they had recently stopped off to resupply their liquor, so Rocket had a pretty good buzz going. His fuzzy head probably contributed to his finally saying,"We'll do it! Whatever it is, we'll do it. But you know my conditions."

"Fifteen minutes, lights out, no kissing?" the Star-Lord grinned.

"Oh, haha. You're so funny. I meant, no inviting Groot."

"_Still?_" Peter asked. "Never mind, it's fine. I won't tell him. I wish you two would just make up already. Someday you'll have to see him, if the galaxy needs saving again."

"I'll cross that bridge if I come to it," Rocket said. "What are we doing, anyway?"

"Flea market on Xander. Commander Dey says it's a huge deal, they got people selling everything there, and it goes on for miles."

Rocket groaned. He probably should have waited to hear what the event was before he agreed. At least it was outdoors, and maybe he could find some parts to salvage into a new gun, or something. He hadn't built any weapons in a long time. "That sounds awful. We'll meet you and Gamora there, then?"

"That's a plan! See you this weekend, buddy."

"Yep," Rocket said, switching off the Holo-comm even as he said it. "You up for a flea market, babe?" He asked over his shoulder, to where Drax slouched in the scooped-back command console chair. "You better be, 'cos I already volunteered us."

"I heard. I am right behind you," Drax said, sounding annoyed.

"What? You mad?" Rocket snapped, already feeling defensive. He got that way any time he sensed someone was irritated with him- his guard would come up, and he'd poise to attack, even over stupid stuff. Drax had been getting really good at not playing into it.

"No. I want to go to the flea market. I will enjoy seeing our friends again."

Rocket crossed the room and pulled himself into his partner's lap. He straddled Drax's waist and held one of the man's large hands in his lap, where he traced the palm's lines gently with one claw. "So, what then?"

"I would like to see _all_ of our friends."

Rocket frowned. "Forget about Groot! He betrayed us, okay?"

"He did not. He did not even betray _you_, if anything, it was you who wronged him." Drax said, the words falling out quickly, as if he'd held them in for a long time, and couldn't contain them for another moment.

"How could you _say_ that?" Rocket gasped. He continued to run his fingers over Drax's palm but now he dug his nails in a little deeper. "You know he hurt me!"

Drax looked away, clearly not liking to see the hurt in Rocket's eyes, not liking to be the one to put it there. "Not everything is about _you_."

Rocket sat in dumfounded silence, too frazzled to even climb down and storm off. His head spun and his claws scrabbled faster, harder, until he was startled out of his train of thought by Drax yanking his hand away. Rocket looked up and saw blood oozing from a deep scratch, and then he did jump off Drax's lap. He stood only a foot away, not bothering to retreat, because where could he go? They were in space. The furthest they could be separated was by a single interior wall in the shuttle.

"You're just like all of them! You don't give a damn about me. You're just... just..." he struggled for words. "Using me! Until you find someone else, who's not a flarkin' raccoon, who's got a pretty body with no scars or holes, who doesn't get fur in your bed, right? And then you'll go! So just go now! And save me the trouble of... of killing you." His vision swam through his frustrated tears.

"I would like to see you try," Drax said kindly, and picked him up. The raccoon struggled in his grasp, but weakly. He didn't really want to get away.

"Put me down!" He railed. "You can't do whatever you want just because you're bigger than me."

"And you cannot do everything _you_ want just because you have been hurt. Groot is my friend as well. He saved all of our lives that day, and I saved his. So the choice to include him is not your own to make."

"I don't care. I hate him," Rocket sniffled. The booze had gone to his head, he realized. It left him vulnerable. He pressed his forehead against Drax's chest in slumped resignation. Drax stroked the back of his head and neck with his unscathed hand, with surprising tenderness. Rocket felt a pain in those million shards of his heart.

"I will not invite Groot to our gathering without your consent. But will you consider it?"

Rocket sighed. "I guess. I'll think about it."

"That is all I ask."

Rocket finally looked up into Drax's eyes. "You're turning me into a wuss, you know that? I never used to give up. Just to Groot, maybe, sometimes. When he begged for somethin'." He was quiet for a moment. "I miss him."

Drax held him in his lap for awhile, stroking his ears and tail, and massaging his back, until Rocket was sleepy and plastered against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of Drax's heartbeat. His own fingers worked against the man's side, tracing a tattoo there. "What does this one mean?" he asked dreamily.

"Vengeance," Drax replied. "It encircles me from back to front, to show how I am bound by the duty of retribution."

Rocket snorted. "I thought it was gonna be something like that. What about this one?" He traced another tattoo, one that started at the hip and carved up around the of his back. Rocket's fingers fluttered up and down the long arc, scratching lightly, and Drax's breath caught.

"It means...the meaning... um... that feels nice." Drax had never before uttered an 'um', at least to Rocket's knowledge. It woke him up.

"Yeah?" Rocket asked, with a toothy grin. Drax scratched him all the time, working his fingers under the fur, but he had never thought to return the favor. Caressing, sure. Nuzzling, licking, yeah, but never a thorough scratch. Now Rocket stood up on the large man's lap and leaned over his shoulder, and clawed lovingly at the tattoos that banded his broad back, and Drax practically purred in his arms. Rocket led him to the bedroom where he had Drax strip down and lie out on the cot. Rocket labored over his body, following each tattoo from it's tip to root, asking about their meanings as he went. Drax arched and sighed and, in between, told him everything.

Like a man reading Braille, Rocket ran his fingers over every crimson line, and was rewarded with the narrative of Drax's entire life. It had been mapped here all along. Rocket had never thought to ask, and so had never heard most of the stories. He cherished the words in the disproportional way anyone does when they listen to someone they have a crush on, storing every syllable to savor later. And when he'd heard all the meanings, some of them twice, he moved to tracing the marks with his tongue, and after that Drax was in no position to say anything.


	10. Chapter 10

The flea market turned out to be every bit the bustling, colorful, crazy sprawl that Peter promised. Covered stalls lined the open streets on either side as far as Rocket could see, and tall flags with waypoint symbols he couldn't read flapped silently over their heads. According to a map he'd found, the stalls went on for miles, then left out into an unlicensed vendor area- likely that would just be poor families selling worn out crap- and at the heart of the market was a government building, transformed into an auction house for the event. People waved and cheered for the Guardians as they passed, which Rocket thought he could get used to.

A young girl skipped over to them, a wicker basket swinging from her arm. She had been selling some kind of food to the shoppers, he knew because he had seen her peddling earlier, and now she placed a delicious looking pastry in Rocket's hand and pranced away, giggling, before he could offer her any units.

"Cute," Gamora said. "She has a crush on you."

The little girl ducked behind one of the peddlers, a doughy woman standing amongst bushels of fruit, most likely her mother. The girl peeked out from behind the woman's dress, smiling ear to ear.

"The kid's deranged," Rocket said, but smiled in spite of himself, and waved to the girl, who couldn't have been older than eight. She squeaked and disappeared behind her mother's billowing skirt. Rocket chuckled.

"Isn't this great?" Quill enthused, as he skipped ahead, spinning unselfconsciously with his arms flung out away from him, like a man in a musical who is about to burst into song.

"It is pleasant to be among friends. Very great, indeed," Drax said, with an earnest smile that warmed Rocket's heart. He wished he could have swallowed his pride and talked to Groot, but the meet-up had been too shortly after Drax wore him down on the subject, and he hadn't had time to gather his humility. But Drax seemed to enjoy himself anyway. He even bought some stuff, which shocked Rocket, who had not seen the man purchase a single thing in the months they'd lived together.

"I have purchased a badoon skull for you," he told Rocket later, after disappearing for awhile into a thick of stalls. "I noticed that you do not have one."

"Thanks, babe. You shouldn't have," Rocket replied, lapsing into the pet name by mistake. Nobody seemed to notice, but Drax gave him a mysteriously grave look. _Yeesh, _Rocket though, _When did he get to be so uptight? _

"Look, Gamora! Drax gave Rocket head," Quill quipped, pointing to the skull, which Rocket had absolutely no idea what to do with. Gamora looked confused, so Quill leaned toward her and whispered something in her ear. Her cheeks turned from green to a weird muddy orange, which apparently was what happened when she blushed. Rocket had never seen her embarrassed before. She waved Peter away without laughing at his lame joke, so he laughed at it himself, and danced off to investigate some shiny bauble that caught his eye.

The four of them explored the flea market for the better part of the afternoon. Rocket didn't find anything that he wanted, but he and Drax enjoyed surreptitiously making fun of the tackier stuff when the vendor's were out of earshot.

When Rocket had first met Drax, he never would have thought that the man could be fun, and not in a million years imagined hanging out with him. Drax had appeared to be a mountain of crazy- the scary kind, not the fun kind. Now Rocket thought that he had turned out to be the fun kind after all. When Drax enjoyed himself it was like his soul turned outward, and he became radiant with sincerity and laughter. He carried Rocket on his shoulders, gossiping up to him about lamps that resembled certain feminine body parts, or particularly atrocious throw-rugs, in tones of gleeful conspiracy. Rocket felt madly in love with him.

"Hey, over here!" Peter called to the friends for about the hundredth time, it seemed, and they dutifully followed his voice. They found him in a pleasantly shaded courtyard ringed by stalls. Rocket hopped down off Drax's shoulder to stand on the cool cobblestones, and they crossed the square together on foot. Quill stood at one booth that was piled high with old junk, the kind of stall most people walked right past, because the items were dirty and in pieces. But he had apparently found something of interest, because he waved them over excitedly.

When they'd gathered around, he pressed a button on an ancient looking black box. A song belted forth and Quill exclaimed, "It's a boom box! And it's got a Lynyrd Skynyrd CD in it. Isn't that wild? Like, how did that even get here?"

"What is a 'lynyrd skynyrd'?" Gamora asked.

"Just an Earth singer. Or that's the name of the band, maybe, I don't know. Pretty good though, right?" Quill said.

The lyrics were a trite narrative about some guy dancing with another man's woman and getting popped for it. A tale as old as time. Still, it did have a twangy, catchy energy that made Rocket's foot tap. _Gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister, gimme three steps toward the door, _the song went. Peter held out a hand to Gamora, inviting her to dance, and Rocket could have laughed. _When will he learn? _He wondered. But then Gamora did take his hand, if a little tentatively, and Rocket's mouth fell open. Quill grinned and pulled her into a brisk Terran dance and, by God, she kept up, and he realized that he wasn't the only one who'd changed over the last few months.

The pair of them were so precious that it made Rocket sick. Actually, their public display of affection kindled an unexpected jealousy in him. Like he always did when he had some heartfelt thought about his relationship with Drax, his first instinct was to admonish himself as stupid and sentimental. But this time he let the feelings wash over him. Quill pulled Gamora in for a kiss, and she actually _giggled_, and suddenly Rocket wanted that kind of happiness too. He wasn't ready to be that public in his affections, might never be, but he did try to grab Drax's hand. People could take it any way they wanted.

But to his surprise, his partner pulled away when he felt the brush of Rocket's fingers against his. Rocket looked up to meet his gaze and Drax's eyes were cold, distant somehow, and it scared him badly. _What did I do?_ Rocket tried to say with his expression, but Drax averted his gaze. Suddenly the shade no longer pleasant, but freezing cold. Rocket stalked off.

He wandered aimlessly through the winding streets for awhile, barely seeing the venders or their wares, only going over and over the details of the day, wondering what the emptiness in Drax's eyes could have been about. He thought they had been having a good time. _You sniveling bitch._ _You fag. It's what you get for mooning after a guy, like some schoolgirl. It's pathetic._

"Shut up," he whispered to himself, clutching his arms, still cold despite the sun blazing away overhead.

He hadn't been watching where he was going and he suddenly found himself nose to nose with another furry, whiskery face. Two dewy amber eyes blinked at him, and although the creature was not sentient, Rocket understood at once that it was deep in distress. It cowered in a cage barely large enough for it to turn around in, and it's furry flanks where caked with it's own waste. It shivered violently. Whether Rocket could sense it's misery because of his own animal ancestry, or just by basic human decency, he was suddenly full of murderous rage.

His eyes flicked up and down the stall, along the row of cages. Nearly all of them were crammed full of suffering animals. The vendor, a sunburned man who wore too much cologne, was standing a few feet away, schmoozing another potential customer. "Yeah, they're genetically modified," he explained to the interested person. "Furry and cute, but they sing like birds. Make a great gift for a loved one. Hey, show the guy," he commanded one of the scared, shit-encrusted animals, and kicked it's cage. The thing twittered nervously and the man laughed. "See? Gorgeous, right? Only three hundred units."

"Hey!" Rocket didn't give him a chance to respond. He shot forward and broke the unsuspecting vendor's leg in two places before he could react. Rocket scurried out of reach as the man crumpled to the ground, swearing and clutching his ruined leg, and (too late) Rocket noticed the two Nova officers watching from the shadows. They stepped into the light with zap-guns drawn.

Rocket threw his hands in the air to show he wasn't resisting, and said, "I'm sorry, I know, I fucked up!" For some reason the Terran variant of the curse popped out of his mouth. "But look, this can't be legal! Look at them!" He glanced down at the animals, which were now shaking harder than ever.

"I have a _permit!"_ the injured man wailed. "Officers! Arrest him!"

The Nova officers seemed to recognize Rocket as a member of the Guardians, and hesitated. They exchanged a look. "Rocket, right?"

He nodded, and they looked even more uncertain. After a long pause, they lowered their weapons. "Maybe we can... work something out."

"What? No!" cried the man as be bled onto the pavement. Everyone else had scattered, and they were alone in the small street. Out the corner of his eye, Rocket saw Quill poke his head around the corner. "It's your job to arrest him!"

"We're all business-minded folks," Rocket said through gritted teeth. "Maybe I could just... compensate you. For the leg. And for your... wares... of course."

He looked like he might refuse, maybe yell again, but by then the officers had holstered their weapons, and clearly were not going to apprehend Rocket. Tears rolled down the man's fat, sunburned face. "My wares?" he asked shrilly.

"We'll have to take them," offered one of the Nova officers, a short, dark haired woman with bright brown eyes. Rocket shot her a grateful look. "As evidence."

"Of course you do," the vender said morosely. "And I suppose it will go missing before the case goes to trial, right?"

The dark haired officer shrugged. "Impossible to say. Evidence disappears all the time."

The man hesitated, and then slumped in defeat. "Forty-thousand units."

"That's extortion!" Rocket yelled. Quill walked up slowly, making sure the officers could see his approach. You only have to be tazed once for sneaking up on a Nova officer to learn a valuable, life-long lesson.

"Forty-thousand," the bastard repeated, stubbornly.

"You got it." Quill pulled out a credit chip, made sure to show it to the officers first, then threw it down to the sunburned man. He caught it with a greedy twinkle in his piggy eyes. Rocket felt sick to his stomach.

Drax and Gamora found them shortly after and, along with the officers, escorted the man to a nearby medical tent, and loaded the animals onto Rocket and Drax's shuttle. "You sure you don't want us to take them?" Quill asked Rocket as he set down the last cage. "This place is tiny."

"It's fine. I wont keep them, I'll find somewhere nice for 'em to live. Thanks, by the way. I'll pay you back," Rocket said.

The Star-Lord shook his head. "Nah, don't. Consider it a gift. Thanks for coming with us to this thing, I know you don't like to come out much."

Rocket shrugged. "It was fun. I think we'll be around more often... if you want, that is. I ain't gonna beg."

Quill laughed, and ruffled the fur between Rocket's ears, making him huff indignantly. "Of course! You're a Guardian. You couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to." And Rocket found that he was glad to hear him say it.


	11. Chapter 11

They decided to remain docked on Nova for a couple days afterward, to clean up the animals and restock the ship. There had been more of the creatures than Rocket guessed, and although he didn't regret rescuing them, he did lament stumbling over them and stepping in droppings all day. They each had six legs and shaggy white fur, and an excess of droopy whispers bristling from their furry faces. They peered at Rocket day and night with golden eyes like twin moons. They were temperamental animals, sweet and serene one moment, and biting him the next. The whole thing made Rocket incredibly tense.

It didn't help that he and Drax were on the rocks. Rocket was too proud (surprise, surprise) to simply ask what the hell was going on, so instead he threw himself into rehabilitating the animals, and pretended not to be hurting. When Drax tried to kiss his neck or lure him to bed, he waved him off, saying he was too busy. Of course Drax knew he was lying. But as long as Rocket refused to talk about it, there was nothing he could do.

On the second morning of their not-fight, Rocket woke up at the kitchen table where he had eventually passed out, and felt that Drax had draped a blanket over him in the night. _Why am I mad at him, again? _He asked himself. The real culprit was Rocket's never ending compulsion to drive away anybody who loved him, but at the time, he remembered Drax pulling away his hand in the market, and hardened his heart.

Later that day they sat together in silence on the floor of Drax's quarters, each with one of the animals in their laps, running brushes through their long, matted fur. Rocket in particular had been brushing for days, to the point where his hands cramped, and still he'd only made it through half of them. The irony was not lost on him that he felt more empathy for these dumb creatures than for any sentient being he'd ever met. They reminded him of himself, of course. They had been experimented on, and ultimately cobbled together, by some higher power. They'd had no say in their fates.

But Rocket also felt jealous of them. They were dumb animals, and seemed to have no memories to torture them in the black hours of the night. The two times that he'd spent the night away from Drax, he'd been woken many times by nightmares, and balefully watched the creatures slumber around him.

"Have you decided what to call them?" Drax asked.

"Nah. It's not really up to me. I mean... I have no idea what they are, so I can't really chose the name for 'em."

Drax snorted. "Everything is named by someone. Swords do not title themselves, and neither do trees, or-"

"Raccoons?"

The large man fell silent. "Are you angry with me?" he asked, as he continued to brush the creature chirping in his lap. It sang sweetly as he untangled it's knotted coat.

"No! I told you that already. You got a problem with your ears?"

"My ears are functioning normally," Drax answered sullenly.

Rocket peered at him out of the corner of his eye, and felt bad about the miserable expression he found on the man's face. "What?" he asked, even though Drax had said nothing.

"I have missed you in the evenings," he said, keeping his eyes glued to the whiskery animal in his lap. "I know you suffer from night terrors. I do as well, and without you, they have increased."

"Ah, yeah. That's the only reason, right?" Rocket made a universally recognized motion with his hand and poked his tongue against the inside of his cheek, making it bulge obscenely in time with the jerking gesture.

"No. I also enjoy your company. Why are you pretending to brush your teeth?"

"You idiot," Rocket said, head lolling back against the cot as though talking to Drax exhausted him. "It's-"

"A blowjob. I know. I was only joking."

Rocket laughed. "You always surprise me. Flark. Why do you do this to me?" He clapped his hands over his eyes and the furry creature on his lap scrambled away, where it got into a honking scuffle with Drax's animal. Rocket groaned. "Okay. Why did you act weird with me at the market?"

"Weird?"

"When I tried to hold your hand." As if he just remembered, and had not been obsessing over it for the past two days, he added, "And when I called you babe. Like I freaked you out."

Drax watched the animals roll around on the carpet for a long moment. It annoyed Rocket that Drax always took long pauses when asked a serious question, like he was putting together a careful answer that Rocket would be unable to rebuke. Eventually he said, "I worried that the others might suspect the nature of our relationship."

Well, there it was. It cut Rocket surprisingly deep to hear it. "Ah. Obviously you would want to hide it. After all, you're screwing a monster," he snarled.

"You're not a monster. I love you." The abrupt way Drax stated the fact, even though the phrase had not yet become part of their vocabulary, struck Rocket like a bolt of lightning. "But when I am with you, I feel disloyal to the memory of my wife. If the others know, they may accuse me of forgetting her."

"Who would say that? Our friends wouldn't!" Rocket cried. But he could tell Drax really thought they might, because a tear rolled down his cheek, and he turned away quickly so Rocket wouldn't see.

"They would think it."

"Babe..." Rocket knew all about insecurity, but had thought Drax immune to it. It was strange to see the strong man cry. Suddenly he did remember something. "Wait, what about that stuff on your planet, about warriors getting it on? To stop sexual frustration, or whatever? You said that even men who had wives did it."

For a moment, Rocket thought that Drax had begun to cry harder, but then realized that the man's shoulders hitched with laughter rather than sobs. "What's so funny?"

"It really is not humorous. It's terrible."

"_What's_ terrible?" Rocket asked, growing exasperated.

Drax turned back to him, a secret light dancing in his gray-blue eyes, and an embarrassed smile on his face. "I lied to you."

"About what, exactly?"

"On my planet, we have words to indicate homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and conflicts are born out of people's orientations. Also, our warriors to not typically engage in sexual activity with each other. I only said that because I wanted to bed you."

Rocket jumped up, and shouted, "You filthy dog! I fell for that line!" But he grinned in spite of his indignation.

"To borrow an expression from you... Sorry, but I'm not sorry. Your companionship has been worth tarnishing my honor."

Rocket fell on him like a whirlwind, pulling his ears, and at the same time planting furry kisses all over his his surprised face. "I should kill you, you jerk. You horrible, sexy, dirty bastard." Drax reached up and cupped a hand around Rocket's slender back, and pulled him into a deep kiss, Rocket's whiskers tickling his nose as his tongue darted out to taste his lips, and his heart thrummed painfully away in his chest. "I love you," he murmured against Drax's mouth.

Mmm," Drax replied distractedly, as his large but surprisingly nimble fingers stripped Rocket out of his clothes. Rocket thought that was fine with him, as those deft hands explored his entire body. Then Drax did 'bed him'. Rocket rode his length to control the depth, but he allowed Drax to grasp his furry hips. The bite of blunt fingernails against his skin drove him crazy. _Babe, _he panted, as the man below him trembled and writhed with the desire to thrust deeper, and Rocket said, _I can't hold out_, and then came onto Drax's belly with a short, sharp cry. Afterward he helped Drax finish off. It didn't take long, and he narrowly avoided having to clean a mess out of his fur.

Side by side on the bed, they caught their breath.

"You never noticed," Drax said. "I added them myself, yesterday, when you left to purchase the new enclosures for the animals."

Rocket had no idea what he was talking about, but then he saw them. The marks were easily missed, just a couple new scrawls of red in the already busy pattern across Drax's chest and shoulders- uneven lengths, spanning from just below the clavicle and up around to the nape of his neck. Rocket touched the raised welts gingerly. The ink was fresh.

"A long, happy life, and a burden," Rocket whispered.

"I hope you don't mind, I altered them slightly. To another of my race, they would show that I found my soulmate in someone who had previously been a friend."

"Soulmate?" Rocket gasped.

"I must warn you, however, that you will have to combat my wife for my hand when you arrive in the afterlife. Alternately, you may choose to coexist in a family unit. Is this alright?" Drax asked, as he wrapped an arm around Rocket's small frame, pulling him closer.

Rocket, who doesn't believe in an afterlife- Doesn't believe that any all-knowing being could give rise in a universe in which someone might take an innocent creature and put so much pain into it, and then give it intelligence so that it fully grasp the unending nature of that pain- didn't argue. Instead he said, "No problem. I'll beat the crap outta her. I'll steal her man" And then dozed off in Drax's loving embrace.


	12. Chapter 12

Rocket woke the next morning to find the Drax missing from bed. He climbed out of the twisted sheets, not bothering to dress, and crept through the shuttle that he'd come to consider his home. He didn't find him in the living quarters, which eliminated nearly every option- the galley, singular table, and the console beyond were all clearly visible from the doorway. That only left the bathroom and his old quarters. Rocket tried the handle of the bathroom and the door swung outward, but it was dark and empty inside, and he found the same with his room. He scratched his chin.

By then, the animals bumbled around him, craning their heads to stare up at him with their moon-eyes and tickle his bare legs with their whiskers. "Okay, okay, come on, you mooches." He clicked his tongue and led them to the kitchen, where he had to get out the step-stool in order to reach the bag of scientifically formulated (and incredibly overpriced) kibble. They twittered praise for Rocket as he emptied the rest of the bag into their dishes.

When he stood back up, he finally noticed the blinking red like on the holo-comm. He crossed the room and ran his finger over the touch switch, and at once the screen flared to life with the blue flashing words- 1 NEW MESSAGE, and with another swipe, he commanded it to play. Drax's face appeared, way too close to the screen. All Rocket could see was the man's furrowed brow for the first few seconds of the recording.

"How does... hm..." the man muttered, apparently to himself, sounding frustrated. "Flarking device! Oh."

Rocket laughed, and touched Drax's face on the screen, sending white ripples of distortion away from his fingertips where they phased through the hologram.

"I am sorry to have left without telling you. I can only tell you that it is for a good reason." Rocket's heart skipped uneasily, but the man addressed him with a small smile, and he thought that Drax wouldn't be as cruel as to draw it out if he were going to leave him. "Please meet me on the planet's surface at sixteen hundred hours, at the following co-ordinates." He rattled off the numbers and as he did, Rocket inputted them into the computer interface. Xander's satellite map system informed Rocket that the location would be a botanical garden. _Weird._

A furry beast finished scarfing down it's food and flumped onto Rocket's lap. With perfect timing, Drax added, "I have fed the animals for you already. Is that all...? Yes. I look forward our meeting tonight. Love you." Then the man fumbled with the controls again for awhile, trying to turn it off, Rocket supposed, so only bald top of his head showed on the holo-screen, and then the message ended. Rocket pushed the creature off his lap, where it honked and shuffled off. He glared at the huddled sprawl of them. They blinked sleepily at him, licking their second breakfast from their whiskers.

_What the hell is this about?_ He wondered.

He couldn't focus on anything all day, just paced around the ship, stumbling over furry white bodies wherever he went. He practically flew out the door at three o'clock. He would have more than enough time to find the garden- According to the coordinates, it was in a capital park only a few blocks away. He almost missed the gate when he got there because it was difficult to see from the ground. A tall, nondescript wall encircled the garden, so he could have been walking past any lot, and the single wrought iron gate was marked only be a small plaque that read 'Groot Memorial Garden'. Rocket suddenly remembered this place, and didn't know how he could have forgotten.

The city had put it in after the events with Ronan, during the long months when Groot seemed to be gone, nothing left but a stick in a pot of dirt. Rocket knew about the garden but had never visited it. He felt that to do so would be to admit that his buddy was gone forever. And in the end he had been right not to bother, because Groot did grow back. Rocket wondered why Drax would have them meet here.

He pushed open the gate and stepped inside, and was transported. Suddenly the world around him pulsed with shifting shadow and light, and birds wickered somewhere in the thick of purple trees. Flowers of every color rose up around him- large scarlet blooms who's faces drooped heavily on their stalks, seafoam bright sprays of white bells, and the slender fronds of ferns unfurled across the peaty earth- and the unexpected beauty gave him a moment of pause.

"You are early," someone said. Rocket hadn't noticed Drax sitting in the shadow of one of the trees, half-hidden in a low copse of yellow flowers.

"Sorry," Rocket grinned, cutting through the growth to meet his... _boyfriend?_ He thought. _Mate?_ "I couldn't stand those flarkin' animals anymore."

Drax laughed and pulled Rocket into his lap. "I also find them difficult to tolerate. I have located a home for them, however, so we will not have to share our spacecraft for much longer."

"Don't you think you better ask me first? Geez. Where do you wanna send them, anyway?"

"Stormy told me that she can keep them on her farm."

"_Stormy?" _Rocket asked, and Drax nodded. "Why are you even talking to that witch?"

Drax reached up with something in his hands, something that he placed on Rocket's head. He knew without looking that is was another flower crown.

"She contacted me to invite both of us to a commitment ceremony between herself and Groot."

Rocket gaped at him. "What? No way am I setting foot at some horrible hippie wedding! It's probably going to be... barefoot, in the woods, or something, and they wont have cake, just some kind of vegan crap, and why is Groot _doing this_, anyways?" When Drax didn't reply right away, Rocket said, "I'm already at the hippie wedding, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"You tricked me!"

"I never said that we could not be meeting at a commitment ritual, I only omitted the information," Drax said, clearly having anticipated the accusation. Rocket sighed and plucked a flower that had been tickling his arm. The placed the stem behind Drax's ear.

"A technicality. But I forgive you. Where is the d'ast tree, anyway?"

"I told him I'd meet you when you got here, and lead you to him. He wishes to speak with you."

"Of course he does. Probably wants to rip me a new one."

Drax shook his head, and rose to his feet. Then he gathered Rocket into his arms. "I don't think that is why he wants to see you."

They chatted idly as they went deeper into the garden. Drax seemed to knew where they were headed, although they followed no trail. Soon they emerged into the clearing where Groot sat with his back to them. He appeared to be carving something into the bark of his torso, and similar marks already banded his arms and neck, a long loopy scrawl of patterns that must have bore some symbolic meaning. Whatever it was supposed to be, it looked beautiful. Groot looked overall more healthy than he was used to seeing him, sort of green and vital, and Rocket supposed that having his roots in the earth agreed with him.

"Hey, buddy," Rocket said. Groot turned around, and if Rocket had actually been worried about the tree being mad at him, he sure as hell wasn't now. Pure joy filled his dark eyes at the sight of the raccoonoid.

Drax set Rocket down in the tall grass. "I will let you two catch up," he said, and quickly departed. Rocket wondered if Drax could stay nearby, maybe even eavesdrop on them, but in the same moment, knew that he wouldn't. When only the two old friends stood alone in the clearing, Rocket found himself unexpectedly overcome by emotion, and had to look away as tears stung his eyes. _Pussy, fag, _his mind goaded, as he wiped his eyes furiously with his arm.

But then Groot stepped forward and plucked him out of the grass, and it was like it always was before- the same comforting woodland scent, the same concerned look in the black pools of Groot's eyes, and Rocket hugged him tightly. "I shouldn't of let you go! I was a proud bastard," He wept against the Groot's rough skin. "I should'a followed you."

"I am Groot," the tree said softly. _It's not too late,_ he meant.

Rocket shook his head, his short fur rubbing against the bark, and said, "Didn't Drax tell you? I've got... other stuff going on, now."

"I am Groot?"

"That jerk really didn't say anything? Well... it's hard to tell you. I haven't told anyone. Me and Drax are... like... dating. In a relationship."

G_roo-ooo-ooot._

"Stop laughing. I'm not joking." Rocket blushed under his fur.

"I am Groot! I am Groot."

"Yeah, thanks, whatever. I'm happy for you, too. Where is Stormy, anyway?"

It turned out that she and a few relatives were waiting in another part of the garden, including Stormy's young daughter, who Rocket had forgotten all about. "You nervous?" Rocket asked.

"I am Groot."

Rocket shook his head. "You're a braver man than me. Did I already say that I missed you? Cos' I did."

Groot rubbed his wooden face against Rocket's small, furry one, and creaked; I am groot_. I missed you too._ And Rocket was so grateful for Drax's trickery, he thought he might burst with love for the both of them.

Later they all met up in the heart of the botanical garden for the ceremony. They arrived informally, in no particular formation, everyone just piling into the meadow. As Rocket had predicted, the bride's feet were indeed bare. Stormy's pink, freckled shoulders glowed like flames in the last fading light of the day, and the white sundress she wore flapped in the sweet-smelling breeze. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a dense, fantastic, golden cascade. Her daughter, Sylvan, had plaited flowers into it for the occasion, and ran a messy braid down one side, and by all rights it should look a ferocious mess, but even Rocket thought it managed to look like a halo of sunshine around her smiling face. He guessed that every bride looked good on their wedding day.

Groot certainly seemed to think so. He flocked to her as soon as he saw her, snaking out tendrils to touch her face and hair and shoulders, and he crooned sweetly. She fluttered like a bird under his scrutiny. Sylvan stood beside Drax a little ways off, peering up at the mountainous stranger with wide, bright green eyes. The child looked to be about five years old, and Rocket bet that Groot adored her. His friend had always been great with kids. Rocket went over to them.

"How does this go off, anyway? Who's officiating?" he asked.

"That would be me," said Peter Quill's voice, from somewhere Rocket. His friend wandered up with his customary lopsided grin. He wore a tuxedo for the occasion. Gamora followed him, but apparently she had refused to don formal attire, because she was wearing her regular clothes. "I feel a little overdressed. You could have told me that Stormy was... you know, a flower child."

Rocket shrugged. "I didn't know we were going to her wedding! You look fine, though."

Eventually the chatter and introductions settled down and they arranged themselves for the ceremony. The whole affair bustled with a kind of good-natured sloppiness. Sylvan seemed to be the flower girl, if an ill-prepared one. She immediately dumped the whole basket of petals, and then ran off to pluck wildflowers, which she periodically returned to chuck unceremoniously at Stormy and Groot. They didn't seem to mind. There was no bride's side, no groom's side, and also no chairs, so the onlookers just stood or sat around as a respectful distance. Rocket and Gamora stood on either side of Drax.

Quill conducted the ceremony under a flowering tree. As he spoke, a breeze picked up a flurry of blossoms and dropped them into the pond behind them, shattering the placid water into a million shards of sunlight. It was gorgeous, but Groot and Stormy were even more glorious that day. Rocket realized suddenly that he still wore the tacky flower crown that Drax had made for him, and that Drax had left the single bloom behind his ear. He smiled.

Stormy and Groot had come up their own vows. "I tried so long to come up with something lovely to say," Stormy began. "Something as powerful as the way I feel about you, Groot. I almost wasn't able to. But then I met your friend Peter Quill, and he told me a classic human love story about a sorcerer who used magic to give consciousness to a tree." At first Peter looked surprised by being mentioned, and as she continued, glazed over uncomfortably. "And the tree fell in love with him, and told him this- There is no immortality but a tree's love. Then she was tragically returned to her regular form, but Groot, that is how I feel. With your love, I feel immortal."

Rocket knew Peter liked to embellish stories and wondered what kind of crap he had pulled that one out of, since he looked embarrassed by it. Still, it had made an effective anecdote for Stormy, had actually been quite sweet.

"I am Groot. I am... Groot. I. am. Groot."

Rocket wiped tears from his eyes. "Beautiful," he whispered under his breath. Stormy got teary as well, and took the tree's large, rough hands in her own. Everyone else just looked uncomfortable, and unsure if Groot was finished."

"I am Groot?" he said to Peter.

"Ah... yes! Well then, I not pronounce you, tree and wife. You may now kiss the bride, if you do that kind of thing, I don't really know."

And they did kiss, and even Drax looked misty-eyed. "It is just the high pollen content in the air," he claimed, and it was true that bio-luminescent spores had wafted into the air as the two kissed, like fairy lanterns illuminating the canopies of the trees, and lighting out across the silver pond. The sun had just sailed over the horizon, and the spores lit the shadowy meadow with a golden glow. There was no bouquet, but Sylvia did happen to toss an armful of wild poppies at Rocket just then, and he caught them reflexively. He stared down at them, then up and Drax.

"Hey," he said, and offered up the flowers. Drax picked up Rocket instead, and together they watched Groot and Stormy's first dance as a bonded couple, and kissed unashamedly in the moonlit clearing.

"Oh my God," Rocket heard Peter Quill say.

"Peter, don't be immature." That was Gamora. "Anybody could tell."

"You could _tell?_ That... just... how does that even work?"

Rocket whipped around and glared at him. "I can hear you, you know."

"Oh good, then maybe you can answer me. How does that even WORK? Because I'm honestly dying to know." The Star-Lord grinned and Rocket could tell his friend was only mouthing off, and he was relieved. He had heard that homophobia was rampant among Terrans.

"If you want to find out, I'll show you," Rocket teased, and then Peter did get embarrassed and wandered off. Rocket turned back to Drax with a whiskery grin.

"Not so bad. Didn't sound like they thought any less of you."

"It would not have mattered if they did," Drax replied, and Rocket knew it to be true. He knew that, for the first time in his whole crummy life, someone would stick around, and guard that space in bed between himself and his nightmares, and look damn fine doing it. In Drax's arms, he knew he was home.


End file.
